
>m:M,S2fe 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©{pp. ©ujHjrigfji Ifta 

Shelf .^.H^jT 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



•Knickerbocker IRugaets 



Nugget— " A diminutive mass of precious metal ' 



2 7 VOLS. NOW READY 
For lull list see end of this volume 



The Garden 



AS CONSIDERED IN LITER A TURE BY CERTAIN 
POLITE WRITERS 



WITH A CRITICAL ESS A Y BY 

/ 

WALTER HOWE 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
Ube IRntcherbocker ipress 



\ 






**& 






Coi\ RIGHT 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 
1890 



Ube Ikmcfcerbocfccr press, IRew Jt)orh 

Electrotyped and Printed by 
G. P. Putnam's Sons 




CONTENTS 



PAGE 
INTRODUCTION I 

PLINY THE) ELDER. 

The Pleasures of the Garden . . . .31 

PLINY THE) YOUNGER. 

Villa Laurentina 39 

Villa in Tusculum .48 

LORD BACON. 

Of Gardens . 61 

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 

Upon the Gardens of Epicurus ; or, Of 
Gardening in the Year 1685 . . .71 

THE SPECTATOR. 

Joseph Addison ....... 133 

Pope or Dr. Parnell .-...'.. 139- 
Joseph Addison . . . . . . , 148 

THE GUARDIAN. 

Alexander Pope . . . . . .155 



Contents 



LADY MARY WORTHY MONTAGUE- 
Letters to the Countess of Bute 



page 
. 163 



THOMAS WHATELY. 

Observations on Modern Gardening 



175 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

Description of a Chinese Garden 
The History of a Poet's Garden 



216 
221 



HORACE WALPOLE. 

Biographical Account of William Kent . 228 
The History of the Modern Taste in Gar- 
dening 236 



JOHN EVELYN. 

Of Fences and Quicksets 



282 








INTRODUCTION. 



TO all who are fond of gardens and garden- 
ing, and who take a certain pleasure in 
enjoying nature, when treated by man as a 
work of art, the following essays and selections 
from some of the masters of ancient and mod- 
ern letters are offered in a form where they 
may be conveniently read and enjoyed. 

Some are old friends, others are less familiar, 
and one or two may be quite unknown to most 
readers of this generation. 

Some passages have been introduced partly 
for that gratification which elegant writing in 
prose or verse always excites, although they 
may not add greatly to the store of garden 
lore. Certain worthy and instructive produc- 
tions, devoted strictly to this theme, have been 



•ffntrofcuction 



excluded for an obvious dulness, from which 
the undoubted scholarship of their authors could 
not redeem them. No contemporary writings 
have been inserted, nor indeed any written 
within this century, though most of the masters 
of English prose during this period have sung 
the praises of the garden.- 

Wordsworth, Scott, Rogers, Mitford, Shelley, 
Ruskin might all be cited. Every one must re- 
call Leigh Hunt's delightful plea for window 
gardening, now so common in England, possibly 
as a result of that appeal ; and Charles Lamb's 
account of the "Temple " gardens in his essay 
on the "Old Benchers" ; while no reader of 
Disraeli can forget the sumptuous descriptions 
of the parks and gardens provided for his 
heroes and heroines in " Contarini Fleming," 
"Henrietta Temple," "Lothair," and the rest 
of those dreamy romances. 

Although many such passages seemed to 
have a claim to admission to this little collec- 
tion, it was thought best to keep to the earlier 
writers, whose pages at all events may claim 
that esteem which may be due to their anti- 



Untrofcuction 



quity, as the " Gentle Isaak " so naively says 
of his milkmaid's songs : 

" They were old-fashioned poetry, but 
choicely good. I think much better than that 
now in fashion in this critical age." 

When our contemporaries shall be ancient 
enough to have acquired this classical flavor, 
the collector of garden literature will find a 
rich store in this generation, and among his 
choicest selections he will doubtless preserve 
that delightful' little book of the late Miss 
Bwing, "Mary's Meadow, and Letters from a 
Little Garden." 

But whatever may be said of what is not 
contained herein, it is hoped that what is may 
be found to be " choicely good." 

Here we may tread the stately alleys and 
classic shades of the " Villa Laurentina " with 
the younger Pliny, or enjoy the more splendid 
though less costly creation of Lord Bacon's im- 
agination, with its squares on squares, parterres, 
and mysterious labyrinths, glowing with flowers, 
and rich with the luscious fruits which he so 
bountifully provides for every month in the year. 



Untrofcuctton 



The Essays of Walpole and Sir William 
Temple have been placed side and side, partly 
by reason of their charm and intrinsic value, 
and partly because they may be regarded as 
representative arguments for the natural and 
the artificial schools of treatment respectively. 
From the well rounded paragraphs of Sir Wil- 
liam, the reader can turn directly to Walpole's 
withering review of their doctrines in a paper 
upon which, for grace and brilliancy, his repu- 
tation might be rested. 

The other selections need no special refer- 
ence, but all are interesting as a mark of the 
claim that the art of gardening has asserted 
over minds of such various types. 

The paper of Walpole " On Modern Garden- 
ing," and the creations of Kent, to which it 
refers, may be said to mark an era in the his- 
tory of landscape art, and the influence of this 
scholarly essay is yet seen, impressed upon the 
features of many an English park and garden. 

The revival of classical architecture under the 
Stuarts and the advent of William and Mary 
with their train of Dutch courtiers had con- 



flntro&uctton 



tinued and developed that artificial school of 
planting which, first introduced in England 
as early as the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
tury, reached its highest expression in the 
Dutch garden, or, as it is now more commonly 
termed, the " Italian garden." 

This style of treatment was not unsuited to 
the straight lines and formal facades of Inigo 
Jones, Sir John Vanbrugh, and Sir Christopher 
Wren, and within proper limits may even now 
be justified, under strict canons of artistic 
propriety, in serving, as it does, to break and 
gradually to soften the outlines of the mansion, 
and to form a connection with the irregular and 
unstudied forms of meadow and forest beyond. 

In France as well, the dominance of the 
courts of Ivouis Fourteenth and Louis Fifteenth, 
with their life of fashion and frivolity, had im- 
pressed their tone upon the domestic life of 
the nobility and gentry. The feudal castle 
had given place to the classic villa and tem- 
ple, and Mansard and L,e Notre had erected 
palaces and established parks, which were 
later to be the model and the despair of every 



•ffntrofcuction 



German prince and baron, and are still admired 
for their noble proportions and refined details. 
The owners of these stately chateaus, how- 
ever, found their love of nature easily gratified 
in an afternoon promenade on a broad stone 
terrace, over whose carved balustrade they 
could lazily survey the artifices of these mas- 
ters or their less skilful imitators. 

Under the influence of this classicism, men 
and women of fashion enjoyed such surround- 
ings rather because they set themselves off to 
advantage, as they and their guests posed be- 
fore each other like the beauties and gallants 
of Watteau. They carried the silks and satins 
of the salon into the bowers and alleys of the 
garden, and it was fitting that they should pro- 
vide themselves with a background to har- 
monize with their gowns and habits, while 
their newly built temples and villas were dis- 
played to full advantage. A somewhat differ- 
ent explanation by H. A. Taine of the motive 
shown in these gardens is so interesting in itself, 
that the reader will pardon its quotation at 
length in this place. 



ITntro&uctton 



"Nothing has interested me more in these 
Roman villas than their former masters. As 
naturalists are aware, one obtains a pretty good 
idea of an animal from his shell. 

" The place where I began to comprehend him 
is the Villa Albani, erected in the eighteenth 
century for Cardinal Alexander Albani, and ac- 
cording to his own plans. What you at once 
detect here is the grand seigneur courtier after 
the fashion of our nobles of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. There are differences, but the two tastes 
are kindred. What they prize above all things 
is art and artistic order ; nothing is left to na- 
ture ; all is artificial. Water flows only in jets 
and in sprays, and has no other bed but basins 
and urns. Grass-plots are enclosed within 
enormous box-hedges higher than a man's 
head and thick as walls, and are shaped in geo- 
metric triangles, the points of which terminate 
in a centre. In front stretches a dense palisade 
lined with small cypresses. You ascend from 
one garden to another by broad stone steps 
similar to those at Versailles. Flower beds are 
enclosed in little frames of box and form de- 



8 ifntroouctton 



signs resembling well-bordered carpets, regu- 
larly variegated with shades of color. 

"This villa is a fragment, the fossil skeleton 
of an organism that lived two hundred years, 
its chief pleasure being conversation, fine dis- 
play, and the manners of the salon and the 
ante-chamber. Man was not then interested in 
animate objects ; he did not recognize in them 
a spirit and beauty of their own ; he regarded 
them simply as an appendix to his own exist- 
ence ; they served as a background to the pic- 
ture, and a vague one, of less than accessory 
importance. 

"His attention was wholly absorbed by the 
picture itself — that is to say, by its human drama 
and intrigue. In order to divert some portion 
of attention to trees, water, and landscape, it 
was necessary to humanize them, to deprive 
them of their natural forms and tendencies, of 
their savage aspect, of a disorderly desert air, 
and to endow them as much as possible with 
the air of a salon or a colonnade gallery, or a 
grand palatial court. The landscapes of Poussin 
aud Claude Lorraine all bear this imprint. 



Ifntrofcuctlon 



They are architectural constructions — the 
scenery is painted for courtiers who wished to 
re-instate the court in their own domain. 

"It is curious in this aspect to compare the 
island of Calypso in Homer with that of Fenelon. 
In Homer we have a veritable island, wild and 
rocky, where sea-birds build their nests and 
screech ; in Fenelon, a sort of Marly, ' arranged 
to please the eye.' Thus do the English gardens 
as now imported by us indicate the advent of 
another race, the reign of another taste and 
literature, the ascendency of another mind, 
more comprehensive, more solitary, more easily 
fatigued, and more devoted to the world with- 
in."* 

The Petit Trianon was a slight protest 
against the sumptuous splendor of the Oran- 
gerie, "The Grand Canal," the basins of La- 
tona and of Neptune, and the superb Tapis 
Vert, with its bordering groves of tortured 
trees and shrubs. That its unhappy mistress 
should have called this secluded retreat her 

* H. A. Taine, "Italy, Rome, and Naples." Transla- 
tion of Durand. 



io Introduction 



"English garden" is a singular indication of 
the rapid spread of the ideas of Kent ; and, al- 
though Jussieu, who as early as 1745 had set 
out many of the trees, and Antoine Richard, the 
queen's gardener, may not have read the enthu- 
siastic pages of Walpole, they were clearly in- 
fluenced by what they well understood to be the 
English taste in gardening and landscape art. 

The time was then hardly ripe for a general 
reaction against the excesses of the artificialists, 
but the little dairy and farm-yard, the wild 
growths and simple farm-yard of Marie An- 
toinette's retreat, mark the real beginning, on 
the Continent at least, of that freer and broader 
treatment of nature which is now regarded as 
the underlying principle of the art. 

The alternation between the artificial and the 
natural schools represented by the "Italian 
garden" on one hand, and the "English gar- 
den," or, as it is sometimes called in many a 
charming English park, the "American gar- 
den," is based upon fundamental and ever- 
existing differences in taste which are recur- 
ring in other domains of art, as in the varying 



ITntro&uctfon n 



fashions concerning painting, music, and the 
drama. 

One generation admires strength and breadth ; 
the next loves delicate finish and nice execution. 
At one time nothing can be too realistic for the 
critics of the day ; and again some master-mind 
will make a nation of idealists. It would be in- 
teresting, if this introduction were the proper 
place, in following out this comparison, to see 
how far these corresponding tastes in the several 
arts agreed or differed at designated periods, — 
that is, whether a change in taste as to painting 
was coincident with a similar change or reaction 
in music and the drama. That there is some 
interdependence in this aspect among the sev- 
eral arts is doubtless true ; it certainly is true 
as between the closely allied arts of architecture 
and landscape art. 

Mr. Hamerton has recently stated, with his 
usual precision, in a paper on "Esthetics," 
from which the following extract is made, a 
philosophic reason for these changes which may 
well be applied to a review of the art now 
under discussion. He says : 



i2 IFntroCmctton 



"An element which enters for very much into 
our aesthetic appreciation of persons and things 
is the simple liking or disliking for the marks 
of human interference. 

"Many minds are so constituted that it is a 
positive pleasure to them to see that human ef- 
fort has been expended upon any thing, and a 
sort of negative pain to perceive that there has 
been no such human operation. This is quite 
independent of any conception of beauty ; and 
yet it is constantly confounded with ideas of 
beauty, because few people take the trouble to 
analyze the causes of their feelings. 

" Since the rebellion against the artificialism 
of the eighteenth century, the rebellion headed 
by Rousseau and a host of writers and painters 
down to our own times, there have been two 
distinct parties, which may be called the natural- 
ists and the artificialists, and even in the quiet 
intercourse of private life, where there is not 
any very eager partisanship on either side, we 
may still distinguish the people who in a more 
active state of controversy would have belonged 
to one party or the other." 



flntrofcuctfon 13 



The application of this general observation 
to landscape art, or to that branch of it which 
has recently been well styled " landscape horti- 
culture," is quite obvious, and with this analy- 
sis of the causes of such differences in taste it is 
easy to see how the natural system, after having 
received such an impetus under Kent and Wal- 
pole, should have almost entirely given place to 
its rival for very many years, and almost to this 
very day. 

The mistake should not be made, however, by 
the adherents of one school of art of utterly con- 
demning the other. However commonplace 
this caution may appear as to music, or, as Mr. 
Hamerton applies it, to painting, it is really 
most true and necessary when applied to the 
treatment of nature herself. There are elements 
of truth in the ideas of both schools which in- 
telligent amateurs and professional men should 
cherish and utilize whenever and wherever cir- 
cumstances will permit. 

It is true that the refinements and frivolities 
of the Dutch and Italian gardeners led to the 
inevitable reaction to simpler methods, — to a 



i4 flntro&uction 



more sincere and conscientious pursuit of 
nature and her ways ; but no one who has en- 
joyed the charm of the villas about Rome and 
Florence when at their best can deny that a 
certain formality, an obvious artifice, lends a 
grace to the gardens appurtenant to these noble 
palaces. 

The straight terraces of the Villa Pamfili 
Doria, the delightful walks bordered with 
azalea and camellia, the surrounding groves of 
pines, firs, and sombre cypresses form an artis- 
tic whole, which should relieve Le Notre from 
the oblivion to which Walpole. consigned him 
for his miserable failure with St. James' Park. 
Bel Respirio the Romans call this lovely spot 
where the refinement of the artificial foreground 
gives the highest artistic value to the distant 
Campagna, with its fringe of purple hills. 

The Florentine villas retain their ancient 
gardens embellished with statues and the tri- 
umphs of topiarian skill, and are not out of 
harmony with the scene, but the modern 
Florentine has sought fresh fields, green pas- 
tures, and wild woods by the banks of the Arno, 



•ffntrofcuction 15 



and finds in the shady walks and drives of the 
Casein e that relief from the noise and dust of 
the town which a park constructed according to 
the ideas of our day can bring even within the 
bounds of a city. 

A hundred years since, the Giardino Jiusti 
captivated Lady Mary Montague, and any 
traveller to Verona who will now take the 
pains to climb its steep paths will find the 
same charm in the aged cypresses, the oddly 
clipped ilexes and. boxes, the stiff terraces and 
narrow and now overgrown beds. 

They are the same old cypresses, shading 
the same old broken-nosed Roman busts and 
statues that Lady Mary saw ; but now more 
mouldy and weedy and ancient with an added 
century of neglect. Yet an old-time flavor of 
art and of gentility asserts itself, and from 
under their sombre shadows the splendid pano- 
rama of the Alps, the valleys of the Adige and 
the Mincio, — the bloody Quadrilateral with its 
towns of Verona, Peschiera, and Mantua, lay 
spread out before the eye, too beautiful for de- 
scription. In such a scene this Italian garden 



16 Ifntro&uction 



was rightly set, and justifies the old proverb, 
"All is fine that is fit." 

Yet while Lady Mary could frankly enjoy 
the art displayed in this ancient retreat, she 
could sing : 

" Give me, Great God, said I, a little farm, 

In summer shady, and in winter warm, 

Where a clear spring gives birth to murmuring brooks 

By nature gliding down the mossy rocks, 

Not artfully, by leaden pipes conveyed, 

Or greatly falling in a forced cascade 

Pure and unsullied, winding through the shade. 

All bounteous Heaven has added to my prayer 

A softer climate and a purer air." 

Modern gardening — our contemporary art, 
not that of Kent, — does not indeed disdain 
the use of all materials suitable to produce an 
artistic effect, though the present drift is un- 
doubtedly with the ' ' naturalists. " It is at the 
present time that this school has asserted 
itself in its greatest vigor and fulness, and as 
now practised it is indeed an art, demanding 
not merely refined taste, sound judgment, and a 
real love of nature, but thorough training and 
cultivation. 



Introduction 17 



Though greatly indebted to Kent in its begin- 
nings, many others have contributed to the de- 
velopment of landscape gardening, and while 
he must always receive consideration for origi- 
nality and for positive accomplishment, it would 
be a mistake to attach too much importance to 
his influence upon the art. In the century or 
more that has elapsed since Walpole's essay was 
written public taste has changed, and changed 
again. Indeed, the very year before that paper 
was prepared and nearly fifteen years before it 
was first published at Strawberry Hill, there 
appeared anonymously an important work on 
the subject ; particularly important, since it 
was almost the very first treatise professedly on 
landscape art. 

This was Thomas Whately's "Observations 
on Modern Gardening," which was published 
in 1770, and though now but little read, is rec- 
ognized as an authority. For the reason that it 
forms one of the landmarks in the literature 
of the subject, the selections for the present 
volume have been made at some length ; but 
they might easily have been expanded, as 



18 Untro&uction 



every page of the little book is readable and 
instructive. 

William Shenstone, who died in 1763, also 
wrote on the subject, and somewhat from the 
standpoint of Kent, his " Unconnected Thoughts 
on the Garden," published in 1764, being fre- 
quently mentioned. Reference may also be 
made to "An Essay on Design in Gardening," 
bj r G. Mason, published in 1795, and to various 
other tracts and papers of about the same time, 
pertaining to what is termed the school of Kent. 

The parks and enclosures treated under this 
style were marked by simplicity, and the ab- 
sence of pagodas, temples, columns, and other 
architectural tricks and devices. "The house 
rose abruptly from the lawn and the general sur- 
face of the ground was characterized by smooth- 
ness and bareness," as Loudon describes it. 

This manner was followed by the romantic or 
"picturesque" style, to which the Gothic re- 
vival of the time contributed not a little, as the 
radical change in architecture required a differ- 
ent treatment of surroundings. The French 
Revolution destroyed the temple and grotto, 



Untro&uctfon 19 



and they gave way to mediaeval castle and 
chapel, and to their broken fronts, mullioned 
windows, pinnacles, and turrets, pines, spruces, 
and cedars of Lebanon readily lent themselves 
in producing a rugged effect. Doubtless the 
romances of Scott had much to do with the 
growth of this taste, though the general tenden- 
cy of art and literature at the beginning of the 
century was strongly romantic and sentimental. 
But, whatever the causes, and they were many 
and complex, a reaction began about this time 
against the simple treatment of Kent and 
Whately, and among the writers who led the 
discussions were the Reverend William Gilpin 
and Sir Uvedale Price. 

The delightful work of the former "On 
Picturesque Beauty," though in part published 
in 1782, was many years before the public, 
going through several editions. This work, in 
eight volumes, consisted mainly in an account 
of the author's tours in every part of Great 
Britain, with a running commentary on the nat- 
ural scenery and the most important country- 
seats on the way, with constant analysis of their 



20 Ifntrofcuction 



beauties or defects. As stated in the volume 
on the River Wye : " The following work pro- 
poses a new object of pursuit, that of examin- 
ing the face of a country by the rules of pic- 
turesque beauty" 

A fair illustration of his method of criticism 
may be found in the following extract written 
about Chepstow: "It is a pity the ingenious 
embellisher of these scenes could not have 
been satisfied with the beauties of nature which 
he commanded. The shrubberies he has intro- 
duced in this part of his improvements, I fear, 
will rather be esteemed paltry. As the embel- 
lishments of a house, or as the ornament of 
little scenes, which have nothing better to recom- 
mend them, a few flowering shrubs artfully 
composed may have their elegance and beauty, 
but in scenes like this they are only splendid 
patches which injure the grandeur and sim- 
plicity of the whole. 

' Fortasse cupressum. 

Sets simulare : quod hoc ? . . . 

Sit quidvis simplex duntaxat et unum? 

It is not the shrub which offends, it is the 



•ffntrofcuction 21 



formal introduction of it. Wild undergrowth 
may be an appendage of the grandest scene. 
It is a beautiful appendage. A bed of violets 
or lilies may enamel the ground, with propriety, 
at the root of an oak ; but if you introduce 
them artificially in a border, you introduce a 
trifling formality, and disgrace the noble object 
you wish to adorn." 

Gilpin's extensive journeyings had made him 
so familiar with broad landscape effects, and par- 
ticularly with the rough beauties of Scotland and 
the north of England, that he naturally applied 
his canons of criticism, as deduced from the 
elements of their beauty to the improvement of 
many spots not at all adapted to such treatment. 
Perhaps, too, the very contrast of these wild 
mountainous scenes to the gentle slopes and 
open groves of the New Forest, where he lived 
many years as the Vicar of Boldre, may have 
warped his opinion. At all events he and Uve- 
dale Price were for the time the champions of 
that freer treatment of a landscape which had 
for its object the production of a natural and 
picturesque effect. 



22 ITntro&uction 



About the same time there was another whose 
writings had even greater influence, as they 
were of a more strictly professional character, 
and consequently reached directly the men 
whose business it was to direct the improve- 
ment of estates. This was Humphrey Repton, 
who in 1794 addressed a communication to Uve- 
dale Price entitled "An Inquiry into the Change 
of Taste in Landscape Gardening," being a dis- 
cussion of the general principles involved, to- 
gether with some practical observations. The 
following year a more important work was pub- 
lished by him entitled " Sketches and Hints in 
Landscape Gardening." 

These and other writings of Repton had much 
to do with the change of popular taste from the 
extremes of the picturesque school, modifying 
that style to what Loudon calls " Repton's " or 
the " Gardenesque " school, "the characteris- 
tic feature of which is the display of the beauty 
of trees and other plants individuai/cy." 

It would be interesting to follow the varying 
fashions in gardening down to to-day, and to 
give some account of the progress of the art in 



•ffntro&uction 23 



this country, where we have had not a few 
men of taste and attainments who have left 
their mark on our parks and country-seats, one 
of whom, Mr. A. J. Downing, has been recently 
worthily and happily honored by the city of 
Newburgh in naming her principal park after 
him. But this introduction is not the place for 
more than a glance at the progress of the art. 
It is enough here to say that the landscape 
gardener of to-day, while to an extent the re- 
sultant of all these antecedent conditions, is 
nevertheless far beyond his predecessors in 
attainments and also in opportunities. He and 
his art have profited by the strides of science 
far more than the artistic productions of his 
predecessors have suffered. Railways, factories, 
smoke and poisonous gases have blighted many 
a fair landscape carefully set and adorned ; but 
agricultural chemistry, structural and biologi- 
cal botany, better knowledge of forestry and 
climatology, enable the gardener of to-day to 
overcome difficulties which were anciently at- 
tributed to malign or providential interventions. 
The old books are filled with the accounts 



24 Ihitro&uctfon 



of such mysteries. Even Evelyn, who wrote so 
intelligently, abounds in fairy stories, like that 
of the well in Hungary, which " transmutes the 
leaves of the oak into brass, and iron into cop- 
per," or, as he naively says in another place: 
"But what is still more strange, I read in one 
Paulus, a physician of Denmark, that a handful 
or two of small oak buttons, mingled with oats, 
and given to horses which are black, alter their 
color to a fine dapple gray, and this he attrib- 
utes to the vitriol abounding in this tree." 

The ends of the earth now contribute a 
wealth of plant life adapted to useful and orna- 
mental tree and shrub culture and to decorative 
horticulture. Their habits and relative value 
in a landscape effect, or in a garden, must be 
familiarly known and felt by an artist who may 
be called upon to make studies for a lodge in 
Scotland, a villa at Cannes, or a park in Aus- 
tralia ; who may be required to bring back the 
primitive verdure to the banks of Niagara, to 
preserve the natural beauties of the Rockies, or 
to plant the Plains with the forests they can and 
should be made to support. The rich flora of 



•ffntroDuction 25 



China and Japan have now been acclimated in 
Europe, — and even more successfully in Amer- 
ica, — and the enormous number and variety 
of trees, shrubs, herbaceous and other plants 
now added to the resources of gardening call for 
correspondingly greater learning and training 
than has ever before been given to the subject, 
so that an accomplished landscape-artist of 
to-day is as far beyond the Kents and L,e Notres 
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
as they were beyond the topiarius who tortured 
the trees and shrubs of Pliny and the Caesars. 

Two qualities which usually distinguish pro- 
fessional from amateur productions in art, 
namely, simplicity and breadth of treatment, 
are especially important when applied to the 
face of nature itself. True, nature will in 
course of time protect herself from the mis- 
guided assaults of well meaning amateurs, by 
covering up or wholly destroying their abortive 
creations. A trained artist, on the other hand, 
knows how to assist nature, without resorting 
too bluntly to the easy device of servile imita- 
tion. In such work, particularly as now taught 



26 UntroDuctton 



and practised, there is produced an impression 
of repose and of well balanced composition that 
is suggestive of natural effect, and yet satis- 
factory as a work of art. 

But the gardens most enjoyed, and most com- 
monly praised by writers past and present who 
have avowed their fondness for gardens, are not 
these elaborate works of art, nor are they of great 
extent ; but rather have they been the village 
door-yard, tastefully planted, or the parsonage 
garden, showing the marks of judicious selection 
and tender care, giving a homely and cheerful 
aspect to such spots, in contrast with the dreary 
and bare surroundings of their neighbors. 

It is precisely to such little plots that modern 
gardening is best adapted. Varying with soil, 
exposure, and climate, the greatest freedom of 
choice is possible as to the effect to be pro- 
duced, and abundance of flowers can be had 
almost the year through if conditions are intel- 
ligently considered. Village door-yards and 
city windows are rich fields for the display of 
good gardening unfortunately but too little 
improved in this country. Indeed its neglect 



llntroDucttcm 27 



here is remarkable as compared with the 
number and beauty of such small gardens in 
England, Holland, Germany, and other parts 
of Europe, — very frequently the result of labor 
at odd times of poor people whose days are spent 
in the factory or the shop. For those who own 
land the great pity is it, that they will not 
merely refrain from growing flowers, but they 
will plant no trees. If they care not for flowers, 
perhaps it may not be worth while to argue 
with them, but as to trees the case is different. 
Most land-owners, with the honorable exception 
of some of our prairie farmers, are wholly in- 
different to the duty which they owe to their 
neighborhood and to their children. For them 
must Old Gerard have written his sturdy invoca- 
tion, as quoted by Evelyn with much approval : 
" But forward in the name of God : graff, set, 
plant, and nourish up trees in every corner of 
your ground ; the labor is small, the cost is noth- 
ing, the commodity is great; yourselves shall 
have plenty, the poor shall have somewhat in 
time of want to relieve their necessity, and God 
shall reward your good merits and diligence." 



THE GARDEN 




THE GARDEN. 



PLINY THE ELDER. 



THE PLEASURES OF THE GARDEN. 



IT now remains for us to return to the cultiva- 
tion of the garden, a subject recommended 
by its own intrinsic merits to our notice : for we 
find that in remote antiquity, even, there was 
nothing looked upon with a greater degree of 
admiration than the gardens of the Hesperi- 
des, those of the Kings Adonis and Alcinous, 
and the Hanging Gardens, whether they were 
the work of Semiramis, or whether of Cyrus, 
King of Assyria, a subject of which we shall 
have to speak in another work. The kings of 
Rome cultivated their gardens with their own 



32 Zbe Garden 



hands ; indeed, it was from his garden that Tar- 
quinius Superbus sent to his son that cruel and 
sanguinary message of his. In our laws of the 
Twelve Tables, we find the word "villa," or 
"farm," nowhere mentioned; it is the word 
"hortus " that is always used with that signifi- 
cation, while the term "heredium" we find 
employed for " garden." 

There are certain religious impressions, too, 
that have been attached to this species of prop- 
erty, and we find that it is in the garden and the 
Forum only that statues of satyrs are conse- 
crated, as a protection against the evil effects of 
spells and sorcery ; although in Plautus, we find 
the gardens spoken of as being under the tute- 
lage of Venus. At the present day. under the 
general name of gardens, we have pleasure- 
grounds situate in the very heart of the city, as 
well as extensive fields and villas. 

Epicurus, that connoisseur in the enjoyments 
of a life of ease, was the first to lay out a garden 
at Athens ; up to his time it had never been 
thought of, to dwell in the country in the 
middle of the town. At Rome, on the other 
hand, the garden constituted of itself the poor 
man's field, and it was from the garden that the 
lower classes procured their daily food — an ali- 
ment how guiltlessly obtained ! But still, it is 
a great deal better, no doubt, to dive into the 



flMfttE tbe BIDer 33 

abysses of the deep, and to seek each kind of 
oyster at the risk and peril of shipwreck ; to go 
searching for birds beyond the river Phasis 
even, which, protected as they are by the ter- 
rors invented by fable, are only rendered all the 
more precious thereby ; to go searching for 
others, again, in Numidia, and the very sepul- 
chres of ^Ethiopia, or else to be battling with 
wild beasts, and to get eaten one's self while 
trying to take a prey which another person is to 
eat ! And yet, by Hercules ! how little do the 
productions of the garden cost us in comparison 
with these ! How more than sufficient for 
every wish and for every want ! — were it not, 
indeed, that here, as in every thing else, turn 
which way we will, we find the same grounds 
for our wrath and indignation. We really 
might be content to allow of fruits being grown 
of the most excellent quality, remarkable, some 
of them for their flavor, some for their size, 
some, again, for the monstrosities of their 
growth — morsels all of them forbidden to the 
poor ! We might allow of wines being kept till 
they are mellowed with age, or enfeebled by 
being passed through cloth strainers ; of men, 
too, however prolonged their lives, never drink- 
ing any but a wine that is still older than them- 
selves ! We might allow of luxury devising how 
best to extract the very aroma, as it were, and 



34 Gbe (3arfcen 



marrow only from grain ; of people, too, living 
upon nothing but the choicest productions of 
the confectioner, and upon pastes fashioned in 
fantastic shapes : of one kind of bread being 
prepared for the rich, and another for the mul- 
titude ; of the yearly produce of the field being 
classified in a descending scale, till it reaches 
the humble means of the very lowest classes, — 
but do we not find that these refined distinctions 
have been extended to the very herbs even, and 
that riches have contrived to establish points of 
dissimilarity in articles of food which ordinarily 
sell for a single copper coin ? 

In this department, even, humble as it is, we 
are still destined to find certain productions that 
are denied to the community at large, and the 
very cabbages pampered to such an enormous 
extent that the poor man's table is not large 
enough to hold them. Asparagus, by Nature, 
was intended to grow wild, so that each might 
gather it where he pleased — but, lo and behold ! 
we find it in the highest state of cultivation, and 
Ravenna produces heads that weigh as much 
as three pounds even ! Alas for the monstrous 
excess of gluttony ! It would be surprising in- 
deed, for the beasts of the field to be forbidden 
the thistle for food, and yet it is a thing forbid- 
den to the lower classes of the community ! 
These refined distinctions, too, are extended to 



UMins tbe BIDer 35 



the very water even, and, thanks to the mighty 
influence of money, there are lines of demarka- 
tion drawn in the very elements themselves. 
Some persons are for drinking ice, others for 
quaffing snow, and thus is the curse of the 
mountain steep turned into an appetizing stim- 
ulus for the palate ! Cold is carefully treasured 
up for the summer heats, and man's invention 
is now racked how best to keep snow freezing 
in months that are not its own. Some again 
there are who first boil the water, and then 
bring it down to the temperature of winter ; — 
indeed, there is nothing that pleases man in the 
fashion in which Nature originally made it. 

And is it the fact, then, that any herb of the 
garden is reared only for the rich man's table ? 
It is so — but still let no one of the angered 
populace think of a fresh secession to Mount 
Sacer or Mount Aventine ; for to a certainty, in 
the long run, all-powerful money will bring 
them back to just the same position as they 
were when it wrought the severance. For, by 
Hercules ! there was not an impost levied at 
Rome more grievous than the market-dues, an 
impost that aroused the indignation of the 
populace, who repeatedly appealed with loud 
clamors to all the chief men of the state to be 
relieved from it. At last they were relieved 
from this heavy tax upon their wares ; and then 



36 Zhc Garden 



it was found that there was no tax more lucra- 
tive, more readily collected, or less obnoxious 
to the caprices of chance, than the impost that 
was levied in exchange for it, in the shape of a 
property-tax, extended to the poorest classes ; 
for now the very soil itself is their surety that 
paid the tax will be, their means are patent to 
the light of day, and the superficial extent of 
their possessions, whatever the weather may 
chance to be, always remains the same. 

Cato, we find, speaks in highest praise of gar- 
den cabbages ; — indeed, it was according to 
their respective methods of garden cultivation 
that the agriculturists of early times were ap- 
preciated, and it was immediately concluded 
that it was a sign of a woman being a bad and 
careless manager of her family, when the 
kitchen-garden — for this was looked upon as 
the woman's department more particularly — 
was negligently cultivated ; as in such case her 
only resource was, of course, the shambles or 
the herb-market. But cabbages were not held 
in such high esteem in those days as now ; in- 
deed, all dishes were held in disrepute which 
required something else to help them down, the 
great object being to economize oil as much as 
possible ; and as to the flesh-market, so much 
as a wish even to taste its wares was visited 
with censure and reproach. The chief thing 



flMinE tbe BIDer 37 



that made them so fond of the garden was the fact 
that its produce needs no fire and ensures econ- 
omy in fuel, and that it offers resources which 
are always ready at hand. These articles of 
food, which from their peculiar nature we call 
"vinegar-diets," were found to be easy of di- 
gestion, by no means apt to blunt and overload 
the senses, and to create but little craving for 
bread as an accompaniment. A portion of them 
which is still used by us for seasonings, attests 
that our forefathers used only to look at home 
for their resources, and that no Indian peppers 
were in request with them, or any of those 
other condiments which we are in the habit of 
seeking beyond the seas. In former times the 
lower classes of Rome, with their mimic gardens 
in their windows, day after day presented the 
reflex of the country to the eye, when as yet the 
multitudes of atrocious burglaries, almost innu- 
merable, had not compelled us to shut out all 
such sights with bars to the passers-by. 

Let the garden, then, have its due meed of 
honor, and let not things, because they are 
common, enjoy for that the less share of our 
consideration — and the more so, as we find that 
from it men of the very highest rank have been 
content to borrow their surnames even ; thus in 
the Valerian family, for instance, the Lactucini 
have not thought themselves disgraced by tak- 



38 



Gbe ©arDen 



ing their name from the lettuce. Perhaps, too, 
our labors and research may contribute some 
slight recommendation to this our subject ; al- 
though, with Virgil, we are ready to admit how 
difficult it is, by language however elevated, to 
ennoble a subject that is so humble in itself. 





PLINY THE YOUNGER. 



VIIvI.A LAURENTINA. 



YOU are surprised that I am so fond of my 
Laurentine, or (if you prefer the name) my 
Laurens ; but you will cease to wonder when I 
acquaint you with the beauty of the villa, the 
advantages of its situation, and the extensive 
view of the sea-coast. It is only seventeen 
miles from Rome ; so that when I have finished 
my business in town, I can pass my evenings 
here after a good satisfactory day's work. 
There are two different roads to it ; if you go by 
that of Laurentum, you must turn off at the 
fourteenth mile-stone ; if by Ostia, at the 
eleventh. Both of them are sandy in places, 
which makes it a little heavier and longer by 
carriage, but short and easy on horseback. The 
landscape affords plenty of variety, the view in 
some places being closed in by woods, in others 



4o XLhe (Barren 



extending over broad meadows, where numer- 
ous flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, which 
the severity of the winter has driven from the 
mountains, fatten in the spring warmth, and 
on the rich pasturage. My villa is of a conven- 
ient size without being expensive to keep up. 
The courtyard in front is plain, but not mean, 
through which you enter porticos shaped into 
the form of the letter D, enclosing a small but 
cheerful area between. These make a capital 
retreat for bad weather, not only as they are 
shut in with windows, but particularly as they 
are sheltered by a projection of the roof. From 
the middle of these porticos you pass into a 
bright oleasant inner court, and out of that into 
a handsome hall running out towards the sea- 
shore ; so that when there is a southwest breeze, 
it is gently washed with the waves, which spend 
themselves at its base. On every side of this 
hall there are either folding-doors or windows 
equally large, by which means you have a view 
from the front and the two sides of three differ- 
ent seas, as it were : from the back you see the 
middle court, the portico, and the area ; and 
from another point you look through the porti- 
co into the courtyard, and out upon the woods 
and distant mountains beyond. Onthelefthand 
of this hall, a little farther from the sea, lies a 
large drawing-room, and beyond that, a second 



flMtnE tbe lounger 41 

of a smaller size, which has one window to the 
rising and another to the setting sun : this as 
well has a view of the sea, but more distant and 
agreeable. The angle formed by the projection 
of the dining-room with this drawiug-room re- 
tains and intensifies the warmth of the sun, and 
this forms our winter quarters and family gym- 
nasium, which is sheltered from all the winds 
except those which bring on clouds, but the 
clear sky comes out again before the warmth 
has gone out of the place. Adjoining this 
angle is a room forming the segment of a circle, 
the windows of which are so arranged as to get 
the sun all through the day : in the walls are 
contrived a sort of cases, containing a collec- 
tion of authors who can never be read too 
often. Next to this is a bedroom, connected 
with it by a raised passage furnished with pipes, 
which supply, at a wholesome temperature, and 
distribute to all parts of this room, the heat 
they receive. The rest of this side of the house 
is appropriated to the use of my slaves and 
freedmen ; but most of the rooms in it are 
respectable enough to put my guests into. In 
the opposite wing is a most elegant, tastefully 
fitted up bedroom ; next to which lies another, 
which you may call either a large bedroom or a 
modified dining-room ; it is very warm and 
light, not only from the direct rays of the sun 



42 Gbe <3ar0en 



but by their reflection from the sea. Beyond 
this is a bedroom with an ante-room, the height 
of which renders it cool in summer, its thick 
walls warm in winter, for it is sheltered, every 
way, from the winds. To this apartment an- 
other ante-room is joined by one common wall. 
From thence you enter into the wide and 
spacious cooling-room belonging to the bath, 
from the opposite walls of which two curved 
basins are thrown out, so to speak ; which are 
more than large enough if you consider that 
the sea is close at hand. Adjacent to this is 
the anointing-room, then the sweating-room, 
and beyond that the bath-heating room ; adjoin- 
ing are two other little bath-rooms, elegantly 
rather than sumptuously fitted up ; annexed to 
them is a warm bath of wonderful construc- 
tion, in which one can swim and take a view 
of the sea at the same time. Not far from this 
stands the tennis-court, which lies open to the 
warmth of the afternoon sun. From thence you 
go up a sort of turret which has two rooms below, 
with the same number above, besides a dining- 
room commanding a very extensive lookout on 
to the sea, the coast, and the beautiful villas 
scattered along the shore line. At the other 
end is a second turret, containing a room that 
gets the rising and setting sun. Behind this is 
a large store-room and granary, and underneath, 



fl> litis tbe lounger 43 

a spacious dining-room, where only the murmur 
and break of the sea can be heard even in a 
storm ; it looks out upon the garden, and the 
gestatio running round the garden. The 
gestatio is bordered round with box, and, where 
that is decayed, with rosemary ; for the box, 
wherever sheltered by the buildings, grows 
plentifully, but where it lies open and exposed 
to the weather and spray from the sea, though 
at some distance from this latter, it quite 
withers up. Next the gestatio, and running 
along inside it, is a shady vine-plantation, the 
path of which is so soft and easy to the tread 
that you may walk barefoot upon it. The garden 
is chiefly planted with fig and mulberry trees, to 
which this soil is as favorable as it is averse 
from all others. Here is a dining-room, which, 
though it stands away from the sea, enjoys the 
garden view, which is just as pleasant ; two 
apartments run around the back part of it, the 
windows of which look out upon the entrance 
of the villa, and into a fine kitchen-garden. 
From here extends an enclosed portico, which, 
from its great length, you might take for a 
public one. It has a range of windows on either 
side, but more on the side facing the sea, and 
fewer on the garden side, and these single win- 
dows alternate with the opposite rows. In 
calm, clear weather these are all thrown open ; 



44 ftbe (Barren 



but if it blows, those on the weather-side are 
closed, whilst those away from the wind can 
remain open without any inconvenience. 
Before this enclosed portico lies a terrace fra- 
grant with the scent of violets, and warmed by 
the reflection of the sun from the portico, 
which, while it retains the rays, keeps away 
the northeast wind ; and it is as warm on this 
side as it is cool on the side opposite ; in the 
same way it is a protection against the wind 
from the southwest ; and thus, in short, by 
means of its several sides, breaks the force of 
the winds from whatever quarter they may 
blow. These are some of its winter advantages : 
they are still more appreciable in the summer 
time ; for at that season it throws a shade upon 
the terrace during the whole of the forenoon, 
and upon the adjoining portion of the gestatio 
and garden in the afternoon, casting a greater 
or less shade on this side or on that as the day 
increases or decreases. But the portico itself is 
coolest just at the time when the sun is at its 
hottest — that is, when the rays fall directly upon 
the roof. Also, by opening the windows you 
let in the western breezes in a free current, 
which prevents the place getting oppressive 
with close and stagnant air. At the upper end 
of the terrace and portico stands a detached 
garden building, which I call my favorite ; 



flMing tbe HJounQer 45 



my favorite indeed, as I put it up myself. It 
contains a very warm winter-room, one side of 
which looks down upon the terrace, while the 
other has a view of the sea, and both lie 
exposed to the sun. The bedroom opens on to 
the covered portico by means of folding-doors, 
while its window looks out upon the sea. On 
that side next the sea, and facing the middle 
wall, is formed a very elegant little recess, 
which, by means of transparent windows and a 
curtain drawn to or aside, can be made part of 
the adjoining room, or separated from it. It 
contains a couch and two chairs; as you lie 
upon this couch, from where your feet are you 
get a peep of the sea ; looking behind you see 
the neighboring villas, and from the head you 
have a view of the woods. These three views 
may be seen either separately, from so many 
different windows, or blended together in one. 
Adjoining this is a bedroom, which neither the 
servants' voices, the murmuring of the sea, the 
glare of lightning, nor daylight itself, can pene- 
trate, unless you open the windows. This pro- 
found tranquillity and seclusion are occasioned 
by a passage separating the wall of this room 
from that of the garden, and thus, by means of 
this intervening space, every noise is drowned. 
Annexed to this is a tiny stove-room, which, 
by opening or shutting a little aperture, lets out 



46 tTbe <3arfcen 



or retains the heat from underneath, according 
as you require. Beyond this lie a bedroom and 
ante-room, which enjoy the sun, though 
obliquely indeed, from the time it rises till the 
afternoon. When I retire to this garden sum- 
mer-house, I fancy myself a hundred miles 
away from my villa, and take especial pleasure 
in it at the feast of the Saturnalia, when, by the 
license of that festive season, every other part 
of my house resounds with my servants' mirth ; 
thus I neither interrupt their amusement nor 
they my studies. Amongst the pleasures and 
conveniences of this situation there is one 
drawback, and that is, the want of running 
water ; but then there are wells about the place, 
or rather springs, for they lie close to the sur- 
face. And, altogether, the quality of this coast 
is remarkable ; for dig where you may, you 
meet, upon the first turning up of the ground, 
with a spring of water, quite pure, not in the 
least salt, although so near the sea. The 
neighboring woods supply us with all the fuel we 
require, the other necessaries Ostia furnishes. 
Indeed, to a moderate man, even the village 
(between which and my house there is only one 
villa) would supply all ordinary requirements. 
It has three public baths, which are a great 
convenience if it happen that friends come in 
unexpectedly, or make too short a stay to allow 



flMing tbe founder 47 

time for preparing my own. The whole coast 
is very pleasantly sprinkled with villas either in 
rows or detached, which, whether looking at 
them from the sea or the shore, present the ap- 
pearance of so many different cities. The 
strand is, sometimes, after a long calm, perfectly 
smooth, though, in general, through the storms 
driving the waves upon it, it is rough and 
uneven. I cannot boast that our sea is plenti- 
ful in choice fish ; however, it supplies us with 
capital soles and prawns ; but as to other kinds 
of provisions, my villa aspires to excel even in- 
land countries, particularly in milk ; for the 
cattle come up there from the meadows in large 
numbers in pursuit of water and shade. Tell 
me, now, have I not good reason for living in, 
staying in, loving, such a retreat, which, if you 
feel no appetite for, you must be morbidly at- 
tached to town ? And I only wish you would 
feel inclined to come down to it, that to so many 
charms with which my little villa abounds, it 
might have the very considerable addition of 
your company to recommend it. Farewell! 

To Gai^us. 




PIvINY THE YOUNGER. 



VII^I^A IN TUSCULUM. 



THE kind concern you expressed on hearing 
of my design to pass trie summer at my 
villa in Tuscany, and your obliging endeavors 
to dissuade me from going to a place which 
you think unhealthy, are extremely pleasing 
to me. It is quite true indeed that the air of 
that part of Tuscany which lies towards the coast 
is thick and unwholesome : but my house 
stands at a good distance from the sea, under 
one of the Apennines, which are singularly 
healthy. But, to relieve you from all anxiety 
on my account, I will give you a description of 
the temperature of the climate, the situation of 
the country, and the beauty of my villa, which, 
I am persuaded, you will hear with as much 
pleasure as I shall take in giving it. The air in 
winter is sharp and frosty, so that myrtles, 



puns tbe lounger' 49 



olives, and trees of that kind which delight in 
constant warmth, will not flourish here, but the 
laurel thrives, and is remarkably beautiful, 
though now and then the cold kills it — though 
not oftener than it does in the neighborhood of 
Rome. The summers are extraordinarily mild, 
and there is always a refreshing breeze, seldom 
high winds. This accounts for the number of 
old men we have about ; you would see grand- 
fathers and great-grandfathers of those now 
grown up to be young men, hear old stories 
and the dialect of our ancestors, and fancy 
yourself born in some former age were you to 
come here. The character of the country is 
exceedingly beautiful. Picture to yourself an 
immense amphitheatre, such as nature only 
could create. Before you lies a broad, extended 
plain, bounded by a range of mountains, whose 
summits are covered with tall and ancient 
woods, which are stocked with all kinds of 
game. The descending slopes of the mountains 
are planted with underwood, among which are 
a number of little risings with a rich soil, on 
which hardly a stone is to be found. In fruit- 
fulness they are quite equal to a valley, and 
though their harvest is rather later, their crops 
are just as good. At the foot of these, on the 
mountain-side, the eye, wherever it turns, runs 
along one unbroken stretch of vineyards termi- 



so Gbe (Barren 



nated by a belt of shrubs. Next you have 
meadows and the open plain. The arable land 
is so stiff that it is necessary to go over it nine 
times with the biggest oxen and the strongest 
ploughs. The meadows are bright with flowers, 
and produce trefoil and other kinds of herbage 
as fine and tender as if it were but just sprung 
up, for all the soil'is refreshed by never failing 
streams. But though there is plenty of water, 
there are no marshes ; for the ground being on 
a slope, whatever water it receives without 
absorbing runs off into the Tiber. This river, 
which winds through the middle of the mead- 
ows, is navigable only in the winter and spring, 
at which seasons it transports the produce of 
the land to Rome : but in summer it sinks 
below its banks, leaving the name of a great 
river to an almost empty channel ; towards the 
autumn, however, it begins again to renew its 
claim to that title. You would be charmed by 
taking a view of this country from the top of 
one of our neighboring mountains, and would 
fancy that not a real, but some imaginary land- 
scape, painted by the most exquisite pencil, lay 
before you, — such an harmonious variety of 
beautiful objects meets the eye, whichever way 
it turns. My house, although at the foot of a 
hill, commands as good a view as if it stood on 
its brow, yet you approach by so gentle and 



plfng tbe i?oun(jer 51 



gradual a rise that you find yourself on high 
ground without perceiving you have been 
making an ascent. Behind, but at a great dis- 
tance, is the Apennine range. In the calmest 
days we get cool breezes from that quarter, not 
sharp and cutting at all, being spent and broken 
by the long distance they have travelled. The 
greater part of the house has a southern aspect, 
and seems to invite the afternoon sun in sum- 
mer (but rather earlier in the winter) into a 
broad and proportionately long portico, consist- 
ing of several rooms, particularly a court of 
antique fashion. In front of the portico is a 
sort of terrace, edged with box and shrubs cut 
into different shapes. You descend from the 
terrace by an easy slope, adorned with the 
figures of animals in box, facing each other, to 
a lawn overspread with the soft, I had almost 
said the liquid, Acanthus ; this is surrounded 
by a walk enclosed with evergreens, shaped 
into a variety of forms. Beyond it is the gesta- 
tio, laid out in the form of a circus running 
round the multiform box-hedge and the dwarf- 
trees, which are cut quite close. The whole is 
fenced in with a wall completely covered by 
box cut into steps all the way up to the top. 
On the outside of the wall lies a meadow that 
owes as many beauties to nature as all I have 
been describing within does to art ; at the end 



52 Cbe (Barfcen 



of which are open plain and numerous other 
meadows and copses. From the extremity of 
the portico a large dining-room runs out, open- 
ing upon one end of the terrace ; while from 
the windows there is a very extensive view over 
the meadows up into the country, and from 
these you also see the terrace and the project- 
ing wing of the house together with the woods 
enclosing the adjacent hippodrome. Almost 
opposite the centre of the portico, and rather 
to the back, stands a summer-house, enclosing 
a small area shaded by four plane-trees, in the 
midst of which rises a marble fountain which 
gently plays upon the roots of the plane-trees 
and upon the grass-plots underneath them. 
This summer-house has a bedroom in it free 
from every sort of noise, and which the light 
itself cannot penetrate, together with a common 
dining-room I use when I have none but inti- 
mate friends with me. A second portico looks 
upon this little area, and has the same view as 
the other I have just been describing. There 
is, besides, another room, which, being situate 
close to the nearest plane-tree, enjoys a con- 
stant shade and green. Its sides are encrusted 
with carved marble up to the ceiling, while 
above the marble a foliage is painted with birds 
among the branches, which has an effect alto- 
gether as agreeable as that of the carving, at 



IMIiib tbe founder 53 



the foot of which a little fountain, playing 
through several small pipes into a vase it 
encloses, produces a most pleasing murmur. 
From a corner of the portico you enter a very 
large bedchamber opposite the large dining- 
room, which from some of its windows has a 
view of the terrace, and from others, of the 
meadow, as those in the front look upon a cas- 
cade, which entertains at once both the eye and 
the ear ; for the water, dashing from a great 
height, foams over the marble basin which 
receives it below. This room is extremely 
warm in winter, lying much exposed to the sun, 
and on a cloudy day the heat of an adjoining 
stove very well supplies his absence. Leaving 
this room, you pass through a good-sized, pleas- 
ant undressing-room into the cold-bath-room, 
in which is a large gloomy bath ; but if you 
are inclined to swim more at large, or in 
warmer water, in the middle of the area stands 
a wide basin for that purpose, and near it a 
reservoir from which you may be supplied with 
cold water to brace yourself again, if you should 
find you are too much relaxed by the warm. 
Adjoining the cold bath is one of a medium de- 
gree of heat, which enjoys the kindly warmth of 
the sun, but not so intensely as the hot bath, 
which projects farther. This last consists of 
three several compartments, each of different 



54 Cbe ©arOen 



degrees of heat ; the two former lie open to the 
full sun, the latter, though not much exposed 
to its heat, receives an equal share of its light. 
Over the undressing-room is the tennis-court, 
which admits of different kinds of games and 
different sets of players. Not far from the baths 
is the staircase leading to the enclosed portico, 
three rooms intervening. One of these looks 
out upon the little area with the four plane- 
trees round it, the other upon the meadows, 
and from the third you have a view of several 
vineyards, so that each has a different one, and 
looks towards a different point of the heavens. 
At the upper end of the enclosed portico, and 
indeed taken off from it, is a room that looks 
out upon the hippodrome, the vineyards, and 
the mountains ; adjoining is a room which has 
a full exposure to the sun, especially in winter, 
and out of which runs another connecting the 
hippodrome with the house. This forms the 
front. On the side rises an enclosed portico, 
which not only looks out upon the vineyards, 
but seems almost to touch them. From the 
middle of this portico you enter a dining-room 
cooled by the wholesome breezes from the Apen- 
nine valleys : from the windows behind, which 
are extremely large, there is a close view of the 
vineyards, and from the folding-doors through 
the summer portico. Along that side of the 



UMing tbe ^owngct 55 

dining-room where there are no windows runs 
a private staircase for greater convenience in 
serving up when I give an entertainment ; at 
the farther end is a sleeping-room with a look- 
out upon the vineyards, and (what is equally 
agreeable) the portico. Underneath this room 
is an enclosed portico resembling a grotto, 
which, enjoying in the midst of summer heats 
its own natural coolness, neither admits nor 
wants external air. After you have passed 
both these porticos, at the end of the dining- 
room stands a third, which, according as the 
day is more or less, advanced, serves either for 
winter or summer use. It leads to two different 
apartments, one containing four chambers, the 
other, three, which enjoy by turns both sun 
and shade. This arrangement of the different 
parts of my house is exceedingly pleasant, 
though it is not to be compared w T ith the beauty 
of the hippodrome, lying entirely open in the 
middle of the grounds, so that the eye, upon 
your first entrance, takes it in entire in one 
view. It is set round with plane-trees covered 
with ivy, so that, while their tops flourish with 
their own green, towards the roots their verdure 
is borrowed from the ivy that twines round the 
trunk and branches, spreads from tree to tree, 
and connects them together. Between each 
plane-tree are planted box-trees, and behind 



56 £be ©arDen 



these stands a grove of laurels which blend 
their shade with that of the planes. This 
straight boundary to the hippodrome alters its 
shape at the farther end, bending into a semi- 
circle, which is planted round, shut in with 
cypresses, and casts a deeper and gloomier 
shade, while the inner circular walks (for there 
are several), enjoying an open exposure, are 
filled with plenty of roses, and correct, by a 
very pleasant contrast, the coolness of the 
shade with the warmth of the sun. Having 
passed through these several winding alleys, 
you enter a straight walk, which breaks out 
into a variety of others, partitioned off by box- 
row hedges. In one place you have a little 
meadow, in another the box is cut in a thousand 
different forms, sometimes into letters, express- 
ing the master's name, sometimes the artificer's, 
whilst here and there rise little obelisks with 
fruit-trees alternately intermixed, and then on 
a sudden, in the midst of this elegant regu- 
larity, you are surprised with an imitation of 
the negligent beauties of rural nature. In the 
centre of this lies a spot adorned with a 
knot of dwarf plane-trees. Beyond these 
stands an acacia, smooth and bending in places, 
then again various other shapes and names. 
At the upper end is an alcove of white marble, 
shaded with vines and supported by four small 



flMutE tbe lounger 57 



Carystian columns. From this semicircular 
couch, the water, gushing up through several 
little pipes, as though pressed out by the weight 
of the persons who reclined themselves upon 
it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, from 
whence it is received into a fine polished 
marble basin, so skilfully contrived that it is 
always full without ever overflowing. When I 
sup here, this basin serves as a table, the 
larger sort of dishes being placed around the 
margin, while the smaller ones swim about in 
the form of vessels and water-fowl. Opposite 
this is a fountain which is incessantly emptying 
and filling, for the water which it throws up to 
a great height, falling back again into it, is by 
means of consecutive apertures returned as fast as 
it is received. Facing the alcove (and reflecting 
upon it as great an ornament as it borrows 
from it) stands a summer-house of exquisite 
marble, the doors of which project and open 
into a green enclosure, while from its upper 
and lower windows the eye falls upon a variety 
of different greens. Next to this is a little pri- 
vate closet (which, though it seems distinct, 
may form part of the same room), furnished 
with a couch, and notwithstanding it has win- 
dows on every side, yet it enjoys a very agree- 
able gloom, by means of a spreading vine which 
climbs to the top and entirely overshadows it. 



58 Cbe <3arDen 



Here you may lie and fancy yourself in a wood, 
with this only difference, that you are not 
exposed to the weather as you would be there. 
Here too. a fountain rises and instantly disap- 
pears — several marble seats are set in different 
places, which are as pleasant as the summer- 
house itself after one is tired out with walking. 
Near each seat is a little fountain, and through- 
out the whole hippodrome several small rills 
run murmuring along through pipes, wherever 
the hand of art has thought proper to conduct 
them, watering here and there different plots 
of green, and sometimes all parts at once. I 
should have ended before now, for fear of being 
too chatty, had I not proposed in this letter to 
lead you into every corner of my house and 
gardens. Nor do I apprehend your thinking it 
a trouble to read the description of a place 
which I feel sure would please you were you to 
see it ; especially as you can stop just where 
you please, and by throwing aside my letter, 
sit down as it were, and give yourself a rest as 
often as you think proper. Besides, I gave my 
little passion indulgence, for I have a passion 
for what I have built, or finished, myself. In a 
word, (for why should I conceal from my friend 
either my deliberate opinion or my prejudice ? ) 
I look upon it as the first duty of every writer 
to frequently glance over his title-page and 



flMinE tbe lounger 59 

consider well the subject he has proposed to 
himself ; and he may be sure, if he dwells on 
his subject, he cannot justly be thought tedious, 
whereas if, on the contrary, he introduces and 
drags in any thing irrelevant, he will be thought 
exceedingly so. Homer, you know, has em- 
ployed many verses in the description of the 
arms of Achilles, as Virgil has also in those of 
^neas, yet neither of them is prolix, because 
they each keep within the limits of their original 
design. Aratus, you observe, is not considered 
too circumstantial, though he traces and enu- 
merates the minutest stars, for he does not 
go out of his way for that purpose, but only 
follows where his subject leads him. In the 
same way (to compare small things with great), 
so long as, in endeavoring to give you an idea 
of my house, I have not introduced any thing 
irrelevant or superfluous, it is not my letter 
which describes, but my villa which is de- 
scribed, that is to be considered large. But to 
return to where I began, lest I should justly be 
condemned by my own law, if I continue longer 
in this digression, you see now the reasons why 
I prefer my Tuscan villa to those which I pos- 
sess at Tusculum, Tiber, and Praeneste. Be- 
sides the advantages already mentioned, I en- 
joy here a cosier, more profound and undis- 
turbed retirement than anywhere else, as I 



6o Gbe (Sarfcen 



am at a greater distance from the business 
of the town and the interruption of trouble- 
some clients. All is calm and composed ; which 
circumstances contribute no less than its clear 
air and unclouded sky to that health of body 
and mind I particularly enjoy in this place, 
both of which I keep in full swing by study 
and hunting. And indeed there is no place 
which agrees better with my family, at least I 
am sure I have not yet lost one (may the ex- 
pression be allowed ! ) of all those I brought 
here with me. And may the gods continue 
that happiness to me, and that honor to my 
villa. Farewell ! 
To Domitius Appoi^inaris. 




LORD BACON. 
OF GARDENS. 

GOD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden. 
And indeed, it is the purest of human 
pleasures ; it is the greatest refreshment to the 
spirits of man ; without which buildings and 
palaces are but gross handy-works : and a man 
shall ever see, that, when ages grow to civility 
and elegancy, men come to build stately, 
sooner than to garden finely ; as if gardening 
were the greater perfection. 

I do hold it in the royal ordering of gardens, 
there ought to be gardens for all the months in 
the year, in which, severally, things of beauty 
may be then in season. For December, and 
January, and the latter part of November, you 
must take such things as are green all winter : 
holly, ivy, bays, juniper, cyprus-trees, yew, 
pineapple-trees, fir-trees, rosemary, lavender; 
periwinkle, the white, the purple, and the 



62 XLhe (Barfcen 



blue ; germander, flags, orange-trees, lemon- 
trees, and myrtles, if they be stoved ; and 
sweet marjoram, warm set. There folio weth 
for the latter part of January and February, the 
mezereon-tree, which then blossoms : crocus 
vernus, both the yellow and the gray ; prim- 
roses, anemones, the early tulipa, the hyacin- 
thus orientalis ; chamairis fritellaria. For 
March, there come violets, especially the 
single blue, which are the earliest ; the yellow 
daffodil, the daisy, the almond-tree in blossom, 
the peach-tree in blossom, the cornelian-tree 
in blossom ; sweet-brier. In April follow the 
double white violet, the wallflower, the stock- 
gilliflower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces, and 
lilies of all natures ; rosemary-flowers, the 
tulipa ; the double peony, the pale daffodil, the 
French honeysuckle, the cherry-tree in blos- 
som, the damascene and plum-trees in blossom, 
the white thorn in leaf, the lilac-tree. In 
May and June come pinks of all sorts, spe- 
cially the blush-pink ; roses of all kinds, except 
the musk, which comes later, honeysuckles, 
strawberries, bugloss, columbine, the French 
marigold, flos Africanus, cherry-tree in fruit, 
ribes, figs in fruit, rasps, vine-flowers, 
lavender in flowers, the sweet satyrian, with 
the white flower ; herba muscaria, lilium 
convallium, the apple-tree in blossom. In 



%ovb JSacon 63 



July come gilliflowers of all varieties, musk- 
roses, and lime-tree in blossom, early pears, and 
plums in fruit, genitings, codlins. In August 
come plums of all sorts in fruit, pears, apricots, 
barberries, filberts, muskmelons, monk's-hoods, 
of all colors. In September come grapes, ap- 
ples, poppies of all colors, peaches, meloco- 
tones, nectarines, cornelians, wardens, quinces. 
In October, and the beginning of November, 
come services, medlars, bullaces, roses cut or 
removed to come late, hollyoaks, and such like. 
These particulars are for the climate of London, 
but my meaning is perceived, that you may 
have ver perpetuum, as the place affords. 

And because the breath of flowers is far 
sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like 
the warbling of music), than in the hand ; there- 
fore nothing is more fit for that delight than to 
know what be the flowers and plants that do 
best perfume the air. Roses, damask and red, 
are fast flowers of their smells ; so that you may 
walk by a whole row of them and find nothing 
of their sweetness ; yea, though it be in a morn- 
ing's dew. Bays, likewise, yield no smell as 
they grow, rosemary little, nor sweet marjoram ; 
that which, above all others, yields the sweetest 
smell in the air is the violet, especially the 
white double violet, which comes twice a year, 
about the middle of April, and about Bartholo- 



64 Gbe Garden 



mew-tide. Next to that is the musk-rose ; then 
the strawberry-leaves dying, with a most excel- 
lent cordial smell ; then the flower of the vines, 
it is a little dust like the dust of a bent, which 
grows upon the cluster in the first coming 
forth ; then sweetbrier, then wallflowers, which 
are very delightful to be set under a parlor or 
lower chamber window ; then pinks and gilli- 
flowers, specially the matted pink and clove 
gilliflower ; then the flowers of the lime-tree ; 
then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar 
off. Of bean-flowers I speak not, because they 
are field-flowers ; but those which perfume the 
air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, 
but being trodden upon and crushed, are three — 
that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-mints ; 
therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to 
have the pleasure when you walk or tread. 

For gardens (speaking of those which are in- 
deed prince-like, as we have done of buildings), 
the contents ought not well to be under thirty 
acres of ground, and to be divided into three 
parts ; a green in the entrance, a heath, or 
desert, in the going forth, and the main garden 
in the midst, besides alleys on both sides ; and 
I like well that four acres of ground be assigned 
to the green, six to the heath, four and four to 
either side, and twelve to the main garden. 
The green hath two pleasures : the one, because 



%ovb JBacon 65 

nothing is more pleasant to the eye than green 
grass kept finely shorn ; the other, because it 
will give you a fair alley in the midst, by which 
you may go in front upon a stately hedge, 
which is to enclose the garden ; but because the 
alley will be long, and in great heat of the year, 
or day, you ought not to buy the shade in the 
garden by going in the sun through the green ; 
therefore you are, of either side the green, to 
plant a covert alley, upon carpenter's work, 
about twelve foot in height, by which you may 
go in shade into the garden. As for the making 
of knots, or figuresj with divers colored earths, 
that they may lie under the windows of the 
house on that side which the garden stands, 
they be but toys ; you may see as good sights 
many times in tarts. The garden is best to be 
square, encompassed on all the four sides with a 
stately arched hedge ; the arches to be upon 
pillars of carpenter's work, of some ten foot 
high and six foot broad, and the spaces between 
of the same dimension with the breadth of the 
arch. Over the arches let there be an entire 
hedge of some four foot high, framed also upon 
carpenter's work ; and upon the upper hedge, 
over every arch, a little turret, with a belly 
enough to receive a cage of birds ; and over 
every space between the arches some other little 
figure, with broad plates of round colored glasr 

3 



66 Gbe ©arfcen 



gilt, for the sun to play upon ; but this hedge I 
intend to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but 
gently slope, of some six foot, set all with 
flowers. Also I understand that this square of 
the garden should not be the whole breadth of 
the ground, but to leave on either side ground 
enough for diversity of side alleys, unto which 
the two covert alleys of the green may deliver 
you ; but there must be no alleys with hedges 
at either end of this great enclosure ; not at the 
hither end, for letting your prospect upon this 
fair hedge from the green ; nor at the farther 
end, for letting your prospect from the hedge 
through the arches upon the heath. 

For the ordering of the ground within the 
great hedge, I leave it to variety of device ; ad- 
vising, nevertheless, that whatsoever form you 
cast it into first, it be not too bushy, or full of 
work ; wherein I, for my part, do not like 
images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff ; 
they be for children. Little low hedges, round 
like welts, with some pretty pyramids, I like 
well ; and in some places fair columns, upon 
frames of carpenter's work. I w r ould also have 
the alleys spacious and fair. You may have 
closer alleys upon the side grounds, but none 
in the main garden. I wish also, in the very 
middle, a fair mount, with three ascents and 
alleys, enough for four to walk abreast, which 



3Lor£> JSacon 67 



I would have to be perfect circles, without 
any bulwarks or embossments, and the whole 
mount to be thirty foot high ; and some fine 
banqueting-house with some chimneys neatly 
c?st, and without too much glass. 

For fountains, they are a great beauty and 
refreshment ; but pools mar all, and make the 
garden unwholesome, and full of flies and frogs. 
Fountains I intend to be of two natures : the one 
that sprinkleth or spouteth water ; the other a 
fair receipt of water, of some thirty or forty foot 
square, but without fish, or slime, or mud. For 
the first, the ornaments of images, gilt or of 
marble, which are in use, do well ; but the 
main matter is so to convey the water, as it 
never stay, either in the bowls or in the cistern ; 
that the water be never by rest discolored, green, 
or red, or the like, or gather any mossiness or 
putrefaction ; besides that, it is to be cleansed 
every day by the hand ; also some steps up to 
it, and some fine pavement about it doth well. 
As for the other kind of fountain, which we may 
call a bathing-pool, it may admit much curi- 
osity and beauty, wherewith we will not trouble 
ourselves ; as, that the bottom be finely paved, 
and with images ; the sides likewise ; and 
withal embellished with colored glass, and such 
things of lustre ; encompassed also with fine 
rails of low statues ; but the main point is the 



68 tTbe (Barfcett 



same which we mentioned in the former kind of 
fountain ; which is, that the water be in per- 
petual motion, fed by a water higher than the 
pool, and delivered into it by fair spouts, and 
then discharged away under ground, by some 
equality of bores, that it stay little ; and for fine 
devices, of arching water without spilling, and 
making it rise in several forms (of feathers, 
drinking-glasses, canopies, and the like), they 
be pretty things to look on, but nothing to 
health and sweetness. 

For the heath, which was the third part of our 
plot, I wish it to be framed as much as may be 
to a natural wildness. Trees I would have none 
in it, but some thickets made only of sweet- 
brier and honeysuckle, and some wild vine 
amongst ; and the ground set with violets, 
strawberries, and primroses ; for these are 
sweet, and prosper in the shade ; and these to 
be in the heath here and there, not in any order. 
I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole- 
hills (such as are wild heaths), to be set, some 
with wild thyme, some with pinks, some with 
germander, that gives a good flower to the eye ; 
some with periwinkle, some with violets, some 
with strawberries, some with cowslips, some 
with daisies, some with red roses, some with 
lilium convallium, some with sweet-williams 
red, some with bear's-foot, and the like low 



Xorfc JBacon 6g 

flowers, being withal sweet and sightly ; part of 
which heaps to be with standards of little 
bushes pricked upon their top, and part with- 
out ; the standards to be roses, juniper, holly, 
barberries (but here and there, because of the 
smell of their blossom), red currants, gooseber- 
ries, rosemary, bays, sweetbrier, and such like : 
but these standards to be kept with cutting, that 
they grow not out of course. 

For the side grounds, you are to fill them with 
variety of alleys, private, to give a full shade ; 
some of them, wheresover the sun be. You are 
to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that 
when the wind blows sharp you may walk as in 
a gallery ; and those alleys must be likewise 
hedged at both ends, to keep out the wind ; and 
these closer alleys must be ever finely gravelled, 
and no grass, because of going wet. In many 
of these alleys, likewise, you are to set fruit- 
trees of all sorts, as well upon the walls as in 
ranges ; and this should be generally observed, 
that the borders wherein you plant your fruit- 
trees be fair, and large, and low, and not steep ; 
and setwith fine flowers, but thin and sparingly, 
lest they deceive the trees. At the end of 
both the side grounds I would have a mount 
of some pretty height, leaving the wall of the 
enclosure breast high, to look abroad into the 
fields. 



70 Gbe <3ar0en 



For the main garden I do not deny but there 
should be some fair alleys ranged on both sides, 
with fruit-trees, and some pretty tufts of fruit- 
trees and arbors with seats, set in some decent 
order ; but these to be by no means set too 
thick, but to leave the main garden so as it be 
not close, but the air open and free. For as for 
shade, I would have you rest upon the alleys of 
the side grounds, there to walk, if you be dis- 
posed, in the heat of the year or day ; but to 
make account that the main garden is for the 
more temperate parts of the year, and in the heat 
of summer for the morning and the evening or 
overcast days. 

For aviaries, I like them not, except they be 
of that largeness as they may be turfed, and 
have living plants and bushes set in them ; that 
the birds may have more scope and natural 
nestling, and that no foulness appear in the 
floor of the aviary. 

So I have made a platform of a princely gar- 
den, partly by precept, partly by drawing ; not 
a model, but some general lines of it ; and in 
this I have spared for no cost ; but it is nothing 
for great princes, that for the most part, taking 
advice with workmen, with no less cost, set their 
things together ; and sometimes add statues and 
such things, for state and magnificence, but 
nothing to the true pleasure of a garden. 




SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 

UPON THE GARDENS OE EPICURUS | OR, 
OE GARDENING IN THE YEAR 1685. 

THE same faculty of reason, which gives 
mankind the great advantage and preroga- 
tive over the rest of creation, seems to make 
the greatest default of human nature, and sub- 
jects it to more troubles, miseries, or at least 
disquiets of life, than any of its fellow creatures. 
It is this furnishes us with such variety of 
passions, and consequently of wants and 
desires, that none other feels ; and these fol- 
lowed by infinite designs and endless pursuits, 
and improved by that restlessness of thought 
which is natural to most men, give him a condi- 
tion of life suitable to that of his birth ; so that, 
as he alone is born crying, he lives complaining 
and dies disappointed. 



72 Gbe <3ar£>en 



Since we cannot escape the pursuit of passions 
and perplexity of thoughts which our reason 
furnishes us, there is no way left, but to 
endeavor all we can either to subdue or to 
divert them. This last is the common business 
of common men, who seek it by all sorts of 
sports, pleasures, play, or business. But, 
because the two first are of short continuance, 
soon ending with weariness, or decay of vigor 
and appetite, the return whereof must be 
attended before the others can be renewed ; 
and because play grows dull if it be not 
enlivened with the hopes of gain, the general 
diversion of mankind seems to be business, or 
the pursuit of riches in one kind or other; 
which is an amusement that has this one 
advantage above all others, that it lasts those 
men who engage in it to the very end of their 
lives ; none ever growing too old for the 
thoughts and desires of increasing his wealth 
and fortunes, either for himself, his friends, or 
his posterity. 

In the first and most simple ages of each 
country, the conditions and lives of men seem 
to have been very near of kin with the rest of 
the creatures : they lived by the hour, or by the 
day, and satisfied their appetite with what they 
could get from the herbs, the fruits, the springs 
they met with when they were hungry or dry ; 



Sir TOlliam temple 73 

then, with what fish, fowl, or beasts they could 
kill, by swiftness or strength, by craft or con- 
trivance, by their hands, or such instruments as 
wit helped or necessity forced them to invent. 
When a man had got enough for the day, he 
laid up the rest for the morrow, and spent one 
day in labor that he might pass the other at 
ease ; and lured on by the pleasure of this bait, 
when he was in vigor and his game fortunate, 
he would provide for as many days as he could, 
both for himself and his children, that were too 
young to seek out for themselves. Then he 
cast about, how by sowing of grain, and by 
pasture of the tamer cattle, to provide for the 
whole year. After this, dividing the lands 
necessary for these uses, first among children, 
and then among servants, he reserved to him- 
self a proportion of their gain, either in the 
native stock, or something equivalent, which 
brought in the use of money ; and where this 
once came in, none was to be satisfied without 
having enough for himself and his family, and 
all his and their posterity forever ; so that I 
know a certain lord who professes to value no 
lease, though for a hundred or a thousand 
years, nor any estate nor possession of land, 
that is not for ever and ever. 

From such small beginnings have grown 
such vast and extravagant designs of poor 



74 £be ©arfcen 



mortal men ; yet none could ever answer the 
naked Indian, why one man should take pains, 
and run hazards by sea and land all his life, 
that his' children might be safe and lazy all 
theirs ; and the precept of taking no care for to- 
morrow, though never minded as impracticable 
in the world, seems but to reduce mankind to 
their natural and original condition of life. How- 
ever, by these ways and degrees, the endless in- 
crease of riches seems to be grown the perpetual 
and general amusement or business of mankind. 
Some few in each country make these higher 
flights after honor and power, and to these ends 
sacrifice their riches, their labor, their thought, 
and their lives ; and nothing diverts nor busies 
men more than these pursuits, which are 
usually covered with the pretences of serving a 
man's country, and of public good. But the 
true service of the public is a business of so 
much labor and so much care, that though a 
good and wise man may not refuse it, if he be 
called to it by his prince or his country, and 
thinks he can be of more than vulgar use, yet 
he will seldom or never seek it, but leaves it 
commonly to men who, under the disguise of 
public good, pursue their own designs of 
wealth, power, and such bastard honors as 
usually attend them, not that which is the true, 
and only true reward of virtue. 



Sir William temple 75 



The pursuits of ambition, though not so 
general, yet are as endless as those of riches, 
and as extravagant ; since none ever yet 
thought he had power or empire enough ; and 
what prince soever seems to be so great, as to 
live and reign without any further desires or 
fears, falls into the life of a private man, and 
enjoys but those pleasures and entertainments, 
which a great many several degrees of private 
fortune will allow, and as much as human 
nature is capable of enjoying. 

The pleasures of the senses grow a little more 
choice and refined ; those of imagination are 
turned upon embellishing the scenes he chooses 
to live in ; ease, conveniency, elegancy, mag- 
nificence, are sought in building first, and 
then in furnishing houses or palaces : the 
admirable imitations of nature are introduced 
by pictures, statues, tapestry, and other such 
achievements of arts. And the most exquisite 
delights of sense are pursued in the contrivance 
and plantation of gardens ; which, with fruits, 
flowers, shades, fountains, and the music of 
birds that frequent such happy places, seem to 
furnish all the pleasures of the several senses, 
and with the greatest, or at least the most 
natural perfections. 

Thus the first race of Assyrian kings, after 
the conquests of Ninus and Semiramis, passed 



76 XLbc (Barfcen 



their lives, till their empire fell to the Medes. 
Thus the Caliphs of Egypt, till deposed by their 
Mamelukes. Thus passed the latter parts of 
those great lives of Scipio, Lucullus, Augustus, 
Diocletian. Thus turned the great thoughts 
of Henry II. of France, after the end of his wars 
with Spain. Thus the present king of Moroc- 
co, after having subdued all his competitors, 
passes his life in a country villa, gives audience 
in a grove of orange-trees planted among purling 
streams. And thus the king of France, after 
all the successes of his councils or arms, and in 
the mighty elevation of his present greatness 
and power, when he gives himself leisure from 
such designs or pursuits, passes the softer and 
easier parts of his time in country-houses or 
gardens, in building, planting, or adorning the 
scenes, or in the common sports and entertain- 
ments of such kind of lives. And those mighty 
emperors, who contented not themselves with 
these pleasures of common humanity, fell into 
the fanatic or the extravagant ; they pretended 
to be gods or turned to be devils, as Caligula 
and Nero, and too many others known enough 
in story. 

Whilst mankind is thus generally busied or 
amused, that part of them, who have had either 
the justice or the luck to pass in common 
opinion for the wisest and the best part among 



Sir TOUUfam temple 77 

them, have followed another and very different 
scent ; and instead of the common designs of 
satisfying their appetites and their passions, and 
making endless provisions for both, they have 
chosen what they thought a nearer and a surer 
way to the ease and felicity of life, by endeavor- 
ing to subdue, or at least to temper, their pas- 
sions, and reduce their appetites to what nature 
seems only to ask and to need. And this design 
seems to have brought philosophy into the 
world, at least that which is termed moral, and 
appears to have an end not only desirable by 
every man, which is the ease and happiness 
of life, but also in some degree suitable to the 
force and reach of human nature : for, as to 
that part of philosophy which is called natural, 
I know no end it can have, but that of either 
busying a man's brains to no purpose, or satis- 
fying the vanity so natural to most men of dis- 
tinguishing themselves, by some way or other, 
from those that seem their equals in birth and 
the common advantages of it; and whether this 
distinction be made by wealth or power, or 
appearance of knowledge, which gains esteem 
and applause in the world, is all a case. More 
than this I know no advantage mankind has 
gained by the progress of natural philosophy, 
during so many ages it has had vogue in the 
world, excepting always, and very justly, what 



78 XTbe (Barfcen 



we owe to the mathematics, which is in a man- 
ner all that seems valuable among the civilized 
nations, more than those we call barbarous, 
whether they are so or no, or more so than 
ourselves. 

How ancient this natural philosophy has been 
in the world is hard to know ; for we find fre- 
quent mention of ancient philosophers in this 
kind, among the most ancient now extant with 
us. The first who found out the vanity of it 
seems to have been Solomon, of which discovery 
he has left such admirable strains in Ecclesi- 
astes. The next was Socrates, who made it 
the business of his life to explode it, and intro- 
duce that which we call moral in its place, to 
busy human minds to better purpose. And 
indeed, whoever reads with thought what these 
two, and Marcus Antoninus, have said upon the 
vanity of all that mortal man can ever attain to 
know of nature, in its originals or operations, 
may save himself a great deal of pains, and 
justly conclude, that the knowledge of such 
things is not our game ; and (like the pursuit 
of a stag by a little spaniel) may serve to amuse 
and to weary us, but will never be hunted 
down. Yet I think those three I have named 
may justly pass for the wisest triumvirate 
that are left us upon the records of story or 



of time. 



Sir THIlilliam {Temple 79 

After Socrates, who left nothing in writing, 
many sects of philosophers began to spread in 
Greece, who entered boldly upon both parts 
of natural and moral philosophy. The first 
with the greatest disagreement, and the most 
eager contention that could be upon the greatest 
subjects : as, whether the world were eternal, or 
produced at some certain time ? whether, if pro- 
duced, it was by some eternal Mind, and to 
some end, or by the fortuitous concourse of 
atoms, or some particles of eternal matter ? 
whether there was one world, or many ? whether 
the soul of man was' a part of some ethereal and 
eternal substance, or was corporeal? whether, 
if eternal, it was so before it came into the 
body, or only after it went out? There were 
the same contentions about the motions of the 
heavens, the magnitude of the celestial bodies, 
the faculties of the mind, and the judgment of 
the senses. But all the different schemes of na- 
ture that have been drawn of old, or of late, by 
Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Descartes, Hobbes, 
or any other that I know of, seem to agree but 
in one thing, which is, the want of demonstra- 
tion or satisfaction to any thinking and un- 
possessed man ; and seem more or less probable 
one than another, according to the wit and 
eloquence of the authors and advocates that 
raise or defend them ; like jugglers' tricks, that 



8o Gbe (Sarfcen 



have more or less appearance of being real, 
according to the dexterousness and skill of him 
that plays them ; whereas perhaps, if we were 
capable of knowing truth and nature, these fine 
schemes would prove like rover shots, some 
nearer and some farther off, but all at great 
distance from the mark ; it may be, none in 
sight. 

Yet, in the midst of these and many other 
such disputes and contentions in their natural 
philosophy, they seemed to agree much better 
in their moral ; and, upon their inquiries after 
the ultimate end of man, which was his happi- 
ness, their contentions or differences seemed to 
be rather in words, than in the sense of their 
opinions, or in the true meaning of their several 
authors or masters of their sects : all concluded 
that happiness was the chief good, and ought 
to be the ultimate end of man ; that, as this was 
the end of wisdom, so wisdom was the way to 
happiness. The question then was, in what 
this happiness consisted. The contention grew 
warmest between the Stoics and the Epicureans ; 
the other sects, in this point, siding in a man- 
ner with one or the other of these in their con- 
ceptions or expressions. The Stoics would 
have it to consist in virtue, and the Epicureans 
in pleasure ; yet the most reasonable of the 
Stoics made the pleasure of virtue to be the 



Sir Militant Gemple 81 

greatest happiness, and the best of the Epi- 
cureans made the greatest pleasure to consist 
in virtue ; and the difference between these two 
seems not easily discovered. All agreed, the 
greatest temper, if not the total subduing of 
passion, and exercise of reason, to be the state 
of the greatest felicity ; to live without desires 
or fears, or those perturbations of mind and 
thought which passions raise ; to place true 
riches in wanting little, rather than in possess- 
ing much ; and true pleasure in temperance, 
rather than in satisfying the senses ; to live 
with indifference to the common enjoyments 
and accidents of life, and with constancy upon 
the greatest blows of fate or of chance ; not to 
disturb our minds with sad reflections upon 
what is past, nor with anxious cares or raving 
hopes about what is to come ; neither to 
disquiet life with the fears of death, nor death 
with the desires of life ; but in both, and in all 
things else, to follow nature, — seem to be the 
precepts most agreed among them. 

Thus reason seems only to have been called 
in to allay those disorders which itself had 
raised, to cure its own wounds, and pretends to 
make us wise no other way than by rendering 
| us insensible. This at least was the profession 
'of many rigid Stoics, who would have had a 
wise man, not only without any sort of passion, 



82 £be (Barren 



but without any sense of pain as well as pleas- 
ure : and to enjoy himself in the midst of dis- 
eases and torments, as well as of health and 
ease : a principle, in my mind, against common 
nature and common sense ; and which might 
have told us in fewer words, or with less circum- 
stance that a man, to be wise, should not be a man ; 
and this perhaps might have been easy enough 
to believe, but nothing so hard as the other. 

The Epicureans were more intelligible in 
their notion, and fortunate in their expression, 
when they placed a man's happiness in the 
tranquillity of mind and indolence of body ; for 
while we are composed of both, I doubt both 
must have a share in the good or ill we feel. 
As men of several languages say the same things 
in very different words, so in several ages, coun- 
tries, constitutions of laws and religion, the 
same thing seems to be meant by very different 
expressions : what is called by the Stoics apa- 
thy or dispassion, by the Sceptics indisturb- 
ance, by the Molinists quietism, by common 
men peace of conscience, seems all to mean 
but great tranquillity of mind, though it be 
made to proceed from so diverse causes, as 
human wisdom, innocence of life, or resignation 
to the will of God. An old usurer had the same 
notion, when he said : No man could have peace 
of conscience, that run out of his estate ; not 



Sir IflMliam temple 83 

comprehending what else was meant by that 
phrase besides true quiet and content of mind ; 
which, however expressed, is, I suppose, meant 
by all to be the best account that can be given 
of the happiness of man, since no man can pre- 
tend to be happy without it. 

I have often wondered how such sharp and 
violent invectives came to be made so generally 
against Epicurus by the ages that followed him, 
whose admirable wit, felicity of expression, ex- 
cellence of nature, sweetness of conversation, 
temperance of life, and constancy in death 
made him so beloved by his friends, admired by 
his scholars, and honored by the Athenians. 
But this injustice may be fastened chiefly upon 
the envy and malignity of the Stoics at first, 
then upon the mistakes of some gross pretend- 
ers to his sect (who took pleasure only to be 
sensual), and afterwards, upon the piety of the 
primitive Christians, who esteemed his princi- 
ples of natural philosophy more opposite to 
those of our religion, than either the Platonists, 
the Peripatetics, or Stoics themselves : yet, I 
confess, I do not know why the account given 
by Iyucretius of the gods should be thought 
more impious than that given by Homer, who 
makes them not only subject to all the weakest 
passions, but perpetually busy in all the worst 
or meanest actions of men. 



84 ftbe (Barren 



But Epicurus has found so great advocates of 
his virtue, as well as learning and inventions, 
that there need no more ; and the testimonies of 
Diogenes Laertius alone seem too sincere and 
impartial to be disputed, or to want the assist- 
ance of modern authors ; if all failed, he would 
be but too well defended by the excellence of so 
many of his sect in all ages, and especially of 
those who lived in the compass of one, but the 
greatest in story, both as to persons and events : 
I need name no more than Caesar, Atticus, 
Maecenas, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace ; all admira- 
ble in their several kinds, and perhaps unpar- 
alleled in story. 

Caesar, if considered in all lights, may justly 
challenge the first place in the registers we 
have of mankind, equal only to himself, and 
surpassing all others of his nation and his age, 
in the virtues and excellences of a statesman, 
a captain, an orator, an historian ; besides all 
these, a poet, a philosopher, when his leisure 
allowed him ; the greatest man of counsel and 
of action, of design and execution ; the greatest 
nobleness of birth, of person, and of counte- 
nance ; the greatest humanity and clemency of 
nature, in the midst of the greatest provoca- 
tions, occasions, and examples of cruelty and 
revenge : it is true, he overturned the laws and 
constitutions of his country, yet it was after so 



Sir TOlUUam Cemple 85 

many others had not only begun, but proceeded 
very far, to change and violate them ; so as, in 
what he did, he seems rather to have prevented 
others, than to have done what himself de- 
signed ; for though his ambition was vast, yet it 
seems to have been raised to those heights, 
rather by the insolence of his enemies than by 
his own temper ; and that what was natural to 
him was only a desire of true glory, and to 
acquire it by good actions as well as great, by 
conquests of barbarous nations, extent of the 
Roman empire ; defending at first the liberties 
of the plebeians, opposing the faction that had 
begun in Sylla and ended in Pompey ; and, in 
the whole course of his victories and successes, 
seeking all occasions of bounty to his friends, 
and clemency to his enemies. 

Atticus appears to have been one of the wisest 
and best of the Romans ; learned without pre- 
tending, good without affectation, bountiful 
without design, a friend to all men in misfor- 
tune, a flatterer to no man in greatness or 
power, a lover of mankind, and beloved by 
them all ; and by these virtues and dispositions, 
he passed safe and untouched through all the 
flames of civil dissensions that ravaged his 
country the greatest part of his life ; and, 
though he never entered into any public affairs 
or particular factions of his state, yet he was 



86 Cbe Garden 



favored, honored, and courted by them all, from 
Sylla to Augustus. 

Maecenas was the wisest counsellor, the 
truest friend both of his prince and his coun- 
try, the best governor of Rome, the happiest 
and ablest negotiator, the best judge of learning 
and virtue, the choicest in his friends, and thereby 
the happiest in his conversation, that has been 
known in story ; and I think, to his conduct in 
civil, and Agrippa's in military affairs, may be 
truly ascribed all the fortunes and greatness of 
Augustus, so much celebrated in the world. 

For Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace, they de- 
serve, in my opinion, the honor of the greatest 
philosophers, as well as the best poets of their 
nation or age. The two first, besides what 
looks like something more than human in their 
poetry, were very great naturalists, and admira- 
ble in their morals : and Horace, besides the 
sweetness and elegancy of his lyrics, appears, in 
the rest of his writings, so great a master of 
life, and of true sense in the conduct of it, that 
I know none beyond him. It was no mean 
strain of his philosophy, to refuse being secre- 
tary to Augustus, when so great an emperor so 
much desired it. But all the different sects of 
philosophers seem to have agreed in the opinion 
of a wise man's abstaining from public affairs, 
which is thought the meaning of Pythagoras' 



Sir TOlliam Cempte 87 



precept, to abstain from beans, by which the 
affairs or public resolutions in Athens were 
managed. They thought that sort of business 
too gross and material for the abstracted fine- 
ness of their speculations. They esteemed it 
too sordid and too artificial for the cleanness 
and simplicity of their manners and lives. 
They would have no part in the faults of a gov- 
ernment ; and they knew too well, that the 
nature and passions of men made them incapa- 
ble of any that was perfect and good ; and 
therefore thought all the service they could do 
to the state they lived under, was to mend the 
lives and manners of particular men that com- 
posed it. But where factions were once entered 
and rooted in a state, they thought it madness 
for good men to meddle with public affairs ; 
which made them turn their thoughts and enter- 
tainments to any thing rather than this ; and 
Heraclitus, having, upon the factions of the 
citizens, quitted the government of his city, and 
amusing himself to play with the boys in the 
porch of the temple, asked those who wondered 
at him, whether it was not better to play with 
such boys, than govern such men. But above 
all, they esteemed public business the most 
contrary of all others to that tranquillity of 
mind wmich they esteemed and taught to be 
the only true felicity of man. 



88 Gbe <3arDen 

For this reason Epicurus passed his life whol- 
ly in his garden : there he studied, there he exer- 
cised, there he taught his philosophy ; and, 
indeed, no other sort of abode seems to con- 
tribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind 
and indolence of body, which he made his 
chief ends. The sweetness of air, the pleasant- 
ness of smell, the verdure of plants, the clean- 
ness and lightness of food, the exercises of 
working or walking ; but above all, the exemp- 
tion from cares and solicitude, seem equally to 
favor and improve both contemplation and 
health, the enjoyment of sense and imagina- 
tion, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the 
body and mind. 

Though Epicurus be said to have been the 
first that had a garden in Athens, whose citizens 
before him had theirs in their villas or farms 
without the city, yet the use of gardens seems 
to have been the most ancient and most gen- 
eral of any sorts of possession among mankind, 
and to have preceded those of corn or of cattle, 
as yielding the easier, the pleasanter, and more 
natural food. As it has been the inclination 
of kings and the choice of philosophers, so it 
has been the common favorite of public and 
private men ; a pleasure of the greatest, and 
the care of the meanest ; and indeed an em- 



Sir William temple 8g 

ployment and a possession, for which no man 
is too high nor too low. 

If we believe the Scripture, we must allow 
that God Almighty esteemed the life of a man 
in a garden the happiest he could give him, or 
else he would not have placed Adam in that of 
Eden ; that it was the state of innocence and 
pleasure ; and that the life of husbandry and 
cities came after the fall, with guilt and with 
labor. 

Where paradise was, has been much debated, 
and little agreed ; but what sort of place is 
meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured. 
It seems to have been a Persian word, since 
Xenophon and other Greek authors mention 
it, as what was much in use and delight among 
the kings of those Eastern countries. Strabo, 
describing Jericho, says : " Ibiestpalmetum, cui 
immixtae sunt etiam alics stirpes hortenses, 
locus ferax, paltnis abundans, spatio stadiorum 
centum, totus irriguus, ibi est regi et balsami 
paradisus." He mentions another place to be 
" prope libanum etparadisumy And Alexander 
is written to have seen Cyrus' tomb in para- 
dise, being a tower not very great, and covered 
with a shade of trees about it. So that a para- 
dise among them seems to have been a large 
space of ground, adorned and beautified with 



go Gbe (3arfcen 



all sorts of trees, both of fruits and of forest, 
either found there before it was inclosed, or 
planted thereafter ; either cultivated like gar- 
dens, for shades and for walks, with fountains 
or streams, and all sorts of plants usual in the 
climate, and pleasant to the eye, the smell, or 
the taste ; or else employed like our parks, for 
inclosure and harbor of all sorts of wild beasts, 
as well as for the pleasure of riding and 
walking ; and so they were of more or less ex- 
tent, and of different entertainment, according 
to the several humors of the princes that 
ordered and inclosed them. 

Semiramis is the first we are told of in story, 
that brought them in use through her empire, 
and was so fond of them as to make one wher- 
ever she built, and in all, or most of the prov- 
inces she subdued, which are said to have been 
from Babylon as far as India. The Assyrian 
kings continued this custom and care, or rather 
this pleasure, till one of them brought in the 
vise of smaller and more regular gardens ; for 
having married a wife he was fond of, out of 
one of the provinces, where such paradises or 
gardens were much in use, and the country 
lady not well bearing the air or inclosure of 
the palace in Babylon, to which the Assyrian 
kings used to confine themselves, he made her 
gardens, not only within the palaces, but upon 



Sir TOUfam Cemple gi 

terraces raised with earth, over the arched 
roofs, and even upon the top of the highest 
tower, planted them with all sorts of fruit- 
trees, as well as other plants and flowers, the 
most pleasant of that country ; and thereby 
made at least the most airy gardens, as well as 
the most costly that have ever been heard of in 
the world. This lady may probably have been 
a native of the provinces of Chasimer or Damas- 
cus, which have in all times been the happiest 
regions for fruits of all the east, by the excel- 
lence of soil, the position of mountains, the 
frequency of streams, rather than the advan- 
tages of climate. And it is great pity we do 
not yet see the history of Chasimer, which 
Monsieur Bernier assured me he had translated 
out of Persian, and intended to publish, and 
of which he has given such a taste, in his ex- 
cellent memoirs of the Mogul's country. 

The next gardens we read of are those of 
Solomon, planted with all sorts of fruit-trees, 
and watered with fountains ; and though we 
have no more particular description of them, 
yet we may find they were the places where he 
passed the times of his leisure and delight, 
where the houses as well as grounds were 
adorned with all that could be of pleasing and 
elegant, and were the retreats and entertain- 
ments of those among his wives that he loved 



92 tfbe (Barren 



the best ; and it is not improbable, that the 
paradises mentioned by Strabo were planted by 
this great and wisest king. But the idea of the 
garden must be very great, if it answer at all to 
that of the gardener, who must have employed 
a great deal of his care and of his study, as 
well as of his leisure and thought, in these en- 
tertainments, since he writ of all plants, from 
the cedar to the shrub. 

What the gardens of the Hesperides were, 
we have little or no account, further than the 
mention of them, and thereby the testimony of 
their having been in use and request in such 
remoteness of place and antiquity of time. 

The garden of Alcinous, described by Homer, 
seems wholly poetical, and made at the pleasure 
of the painter, like the rest of the romantic 
palace in that little barren island of Phaeacia 
or Corfu. Yet, as all the pieces of this tran- 
scendent genius are composed with excellent 
knowledge, as well as fancy, so they seldom 
fail of instruction as well as delight, to all that 
read him. The seat of this garden, joining to 
the gates of the palace, the compass of the in- 
closure being four acres, the tall trees of shade, 
as well as those of fruit, the two fountains, the 
one for the use of the garden, and the other of 
the palace, the continual succession of fruits 
throughout the whole year are, for aught I 



Sir William temple 93 

know, the best rules or provisions that can 
go towards composing the best gardens ; nor is 
it unlikely that Homer may have drawn this 
picture after the life of some he had seen in 
Ionia, the country and usual abode of this 
divine poet, and, indeed, the region of the 
most refined pleasure and luxury, as well as 
invention and wit : for the humor and custom 
of gardens may have descended earlier into the 
Lower Asia, from Damascus, Assyria, and other 
parts of the eastern empires, though they seem 
to have made late entrance and smaller im- 
provement in those of Greece and Rome ; at 
least in no proportion to their other inventions 
or refinements of pleasure and luxury. 

The long and flourishing peace of the two 
first empires gave earlier rise and growth to 
learning and civility, and all the consequences 
of them, in magnificence and elegancy of 
building and gardening, whereas Greece and 
Rome were almost perpetually engaged in 
quarrels and wars either abroad or at home, 
and so were busy in actions that were done 
under the sun, rather than those under the 
shade. These were the entertainments of the 
softer nations that fell under the virtue and 
prowess of the two last empires, which from 
those conquests brought home mighty in- 
creases both of riches and luxury, and so 



94 Gbe (Barfcen 



perhaps lost more than they got by the spoils 
of the east. 

There may be another reason for the small 
adyance of gardening in those excellent and 
more temperate climates, where the air and soil 
were so apt of themselves to produce the best 
sorts of fruits, without the necessity of culti- 
vating them by labor and care ; whereas the 
hotter climates, as well as the cold, are forced 
upon industry and skill, to produce or im- 
prove many fruits that grow of themselves in 
the more temperate regions. However it were, 
we have very little mention of gardens in old 
Greece or in old Rome, for pleasure or with 
elegance, nor of much curiousness or care, to 
introduce the fruits of foreign climates, con- 
tenting themselves with those which were 
native of their own ; and these were the vine, 
the olive, the fig, the pear, and the apple. 
Cato, as I remember, mentions no more, and 
their gardens were then but the necessary part 
of their farms, intended particularly for the 
cheap and easy food of their hinds or slaves 
employed in their agriculture, and so were 
turned chiefly to all the common sorts of 
plants, herbs, or legumes (as the French 
call them) proper for common nourishment ; 
and the name of hortus is taken to be from 
ortus, because it perpetually furnishes some 



Sir TOlllam {Temple 95 

rise or production of something new in the 
world. 

Lrucullus, after the Mithridatic war, first 
brought cherries from Pontus into Italy, which so 
generally pleased and were so easily propagated 
in all climates, that within the space of about an 
hundred years, having travelled westward with 
the Roman conquests, they grew common as 
far as the Rhine, and passed over into Britain. 
After the conquest of Africa, Greece, the Lesser 
Asia, and Syria, were brought into Italy all the 
sorts of their mala, which we interpret apples, 
and might signify -no more at first, but were 
afterwards applied to many other foreign fruits ; 
the apricots, coming from L Epire, were called 
mala Epirotica ; peaches from Persia, mala 
Persica ; citrons of Media, Medica; pomegran- 
ates from Carthage, Punica ; quinces, Cathonea, 
from a small island in the Grecian seas ; their 
best pears were brought from Alexandria, 
Numidia, Greece, and Numantia, as appears by 
their several appellations ; their plums, from 
Armenia, Syria, but chiefly from Damascus. 
The kinds of these aie reckoned, in Nero's 
time, to have been near thirty, as well as of 
figs, and many of them were entertained at 
Rome with so great applause, and so general 
vogue, that the great captains, and even con- 
sular men, who first brought them over, took 



96 XLhc (Barren 



pride in giving them their own names (by which 
they run a great while in Rome), as in memory 
of some great service or pleasure they had done 
their country, so that not only laws and battles, 
but several sorts of apples or mala, and of 
pears, were called Manlian and Claudian, Pom- 
peian and Tiberian, and by several other such 
noble names. 

Thus the fruits of Rome, in about a hun- 
dred years, came from countries as far as their 
conquests had reached ; and, like learning, 
architecture, painting, and statuary, made their 
great advances in Italy about the Augustan age. 
What was of most request in their common 
gardens in Virgil's time, or at least in his 
youth, may be conjectured by the description 
of his old Corycian's gardens in the fourth of 
the Georgics, which begins : 

Namque sub CEbalicB memini turribus altis. 

Among flowers, the roses had the first place, 
especially a kind which bore twice a year, and 
none other sorts are here mentioned besides the 
narcissus, though the violet and the lily were 
very common, and the next in esteem, espe- 
cially the breve lilium, which was the tube- 
rose. The plants he mentioned are the apium, 
which though commonly interpreted parsley, 
yet comprehends all sorts of smallage, where- 



Sir William temple 97 

of celery is one ; cucumis, which takes in all 
sorts of melons, as well as cucumbers ; ohis, 
which is a common word for all sorts of pot- 
herbs and legumes ; verbenas, which signifies 
all kinds of sweet or sacred plants, that 
were used for adorning the altars, as bays, 
olive, rosemary, myrtle ; the acanthus seems 
to be what we called pericanthe ; but what their 
hedercs were, that deserved place in a garden, I 
cannot guess, unless they had sorts of ivy un- 
known to us ; nor what his vescum papaver was, 
since poppies with us are of no use in eat- 
ing. The fruits mentioned are only apples, 
pears, and plums, for olives, vines, and figs 
were grown to be fruits of their fields, rather 
than of their gardens. The shades were the 
elm, the pine, the lime-tree, and the platanus, 
or plane-tree, whose leaf and shade of all others 
was the most in request ; and, having been 
brought out of Persia, was such an inclination 
among the Greeks and Romans, that they usual- 
ly fed it with wine instead of water ; they be- 
lieved this tree loved that liquor, as well as 
those that used to drink under its shade, which 
was a great humor and custom, and perhaps 
gave rise to the other, by observing the growth 
of the tree, or largeness of the leaves, where 
much wine was spilt or left, and thrown upon 
the roots. 



98 ftbe <3arfcen 



It is great pity the haste which Virgil seems 
here to have been in should have hindered him 
from entering farther into the account or in- 
structions of gardening, which he said he could 
have given, and which he seems to have so 
much esteemed and loved, by that admirable 
picture of this old man's felicity, which he 
draws like so great a master, with one stroke of 
a pencil in those four words : 

Regum czqiiabat opes aniniis. 

That in the midst of these small possessions, 
upon a few acres of barren ground, yet he 
equalled all the wealth and opulence of kings, 
in the ease, content, and freedom of his mind. 

I am not satisfied with the common accepta- 
tion of the mala aurea for oranges ; nor do I find 
any passage in the authors of that age, which 
gives me the opinion, that these were otherwise 
known to the Romans than as fruits of the 
eastern climates. I should take their mala aurea 
to be rather some kind of apples, so called from 
the golden color, as some are amongst us ; for 
otherwise, the orange-tree is too noble in the 
beauty, taste, and smell of its fruit ; in the per- 
fume and virtue of its flowers ; in the perpetual 
verdure of its leaves, and in the excellent uses 
of all these, both for pleasure and health ; not to 
have deserved any particular mention in the 



Sir TKfltUiam tTempte 99 

writings of an age and nation so refined and 
exquisite in all sorts of delicious luxury. 

The charming description Virgil makes of the 
happy apple, must be intended either for the 
citron, or for some sort of orange growing in 
Media, which was either so proper to that 
country as not to grow in any other (as a cer- 
tain sort of fig was to Damascus), or to have lost 
its virtue by changing soils, or to have had its 
effect of curing some sort of poison that was 
usual in that country, but particular to it : I 
cannot forbear inserting those few lines out of 
the second of Virgil's Georgics, not having ever 
heard anybody else take notice of them. 

Media fert tristes succos, tardumque saporem 
Felicis mali ; quo non prcesentius ullum, 
Pocula si quandb scbvce infecere novercez, 
Auxilium venit, ac membris agit atra venena : 
Ipsa ingens arbos , faciemque simillima lauro ; 
Et, si non alios late jactaret odores, 
Laurus erit ; folia hand ullis labentia vends ; 
Flos apprima tenax : animas et olentia Medi 
Ora fovent illo, ac senibus medicantur anhelis. 

"Media brings po is' nous herbs, and the flat taste 
Of the bless'd apple, than which ne'er was found 
A help more present, when curs'd step-dames mix 
Their mortal cups, to drive the venom out : 
'T is a large tree, and like a bays in hue ; 
And, did it not such odors cast about, 
'T would be a bays ; the leaves with no winds fall ; 
The flowers all excel : with these the Medes 
Perfume their breaths, and cure old pursy men." 



ioo Zhe (Barren 



The tree being so like a bays or laurel, the 
slow or dull taste of the apple, the virtue of it 
against poison, seem to describe the citron : the 
perfume of the flowers and virtues of them, to 
cure ill scents of mouth or breath, or shortness 
of wind in pursy old men, seem to agree most 
with the orange : if Jlos apprima tenax mean 
only the excellence of the flower above all 
others, it may be intended for the orange : if it 
signifies the flowers growing most upon the 
tops of the trees, it may be rather the citron ; 
for I have been so curious as to bring up a 
citron from a kernel, which at tw T elve years of 
age began to flower ; and I observed all the 
flowers to grow upon the top branches of the 
tree, but to be nothing so high or sweet-scented 
as the orange. On the other side, I have always 
heard oranges to pass for a cordial juice, and a 
very great preservative against the plague, 
which is a sort of venom ; so that I know not to 
which of these we are to ascribe this lovely 
picture of the happy apple ; but I am satisfied 
by it, that neither of them was at all common, 
if at all known in Italy, at that time, or long 
after, though the fruit be now so frequent there 
in fields (at least in some parts) and make so 
common and delicious a part of gardening, 
even in these northern climates. 



Sir William {Temple 101 

It is certain those noble fruits, the citron, the 
orange, and the lemon, are the native product 
of those noble regions, Assyria, Media, and 
Persia ; and, though they have been from 
thence transplanted and propagated in many 
parts of Europe, yet they have not arrived at 
such perfection in beauty, taste, or virtue, as in 
their native soil and climate. This made it 
generally observed among the Greeks and 
Romans, that the fruits of the east far excelled 
those of the west. And several writers have 
trifled away their time in deducing the reasons 
of this difference, from the more benign or pow- 
erful influence of the rising sun. But there is 
nothing more evident to any man that has the 
least knowledge of the globe, and gives himself 
leave to think, than the folly of such wise 
reasons, since the regions, that are east to us, 
are west to some others ; and the sun rises alike 
to all that lie in the same latitude, with the 
same heat and virtue upon its first approaches, 
as well as in its progress. Besides, if the east- 
ern fruits were the better only for that position 
of climate, then those of India should excel 
those of Persia ; which we do not find by com- 
paring the accounts of those countries : but 
Assyria, Media, and Persia have been ever es- 
teemed, and will be ever found, the true regions 



io2 Zhe (3arfcen 



of the best and noblest fruits in the world. 
The reason of it can be no other, than that of 
an excellent and proper soil, being there 
extended under the best climate for the produc- 
tion of all sorts of the best fruits ; which seems 
to be from about twenty-five to about thirty-five 
degrees of latitude. Now the regions under 
this climate, in the present Persian empire 
(which comprehends most of the other two, 
called anciently Assyria and Media), are com- 
posed of many provinces full of great and 
fertile plains, bounded by high mountains, 
especially to the north ; watered naturally with 
many rivers, and those, by art and labor, 
derived into many more and smaller streams, 
which all conspire to form a country, in all 
circumstances, the most proper and agreeable 
for the production of the best and noblest 
fruits. Whereas if we survey the regions of the 
western world, lying in the same latitude be- 
tween twenty-five and thirty-five degrees, we 
shall find them extended either over the Medi- 
terranean Sea, the ocean, or the sandy barren 
countries of Africa ; and that no part of the 
continent of Europe lies so southward as thirty- 
five degrees. Which may serve to discover the 
true genuine reason, why the fruits of the east 
have been always observed and agreed to trans- 
cend those of the west. 



Sir William temple 103 

In our northwest climates, our gardens are 
very different from what they were in Greece 
and Italy, and from what they are now in those 
regions in Spain or the southern parts of France. 
And as most general customs in countries grow 
from the different nature of climate, soils, or 
situations, and from the necessities or industry 
they impose, so do these. 

In the warmer regions, fruits and flowers of 
the best sorts are so common and of so easy 
production, that they grow in fields, and are not 
worth the cost of inclosing, or the care of more 
than ordinary cultivating. On the other side, 
the greatest pleasures of these climates are 
coolness of air, and whatever looks cool even to 
the eyes, and relieves them from the unpleas- 
ant sight of dusty streets or parched fields. 
This makes the gardens of those countries to be 
chiefly valued by largeness of extent (which 
gives greater play and openness of air), by 
shades of trees, by frequency of living streams 
or fountains, by perspectives, by statues, and by 
pillars and obelisks of stone scattered up and 
down, which all conspire to make any place 
look fresh and cool. On the contrary, the 
more northern climates, as they suffer little by 
heat, make little provision against it, and are 
\ careless of shade, and seldom curious in foun- 
: tains. Good statues are in the reach of few 



io4 TLhe <3arfcen 



men, and common ones are generally and justly- 
despised or neglected. But no sorts of good 
fruits or flowers, being natives of the climates, 
or usual among us (nor indeed the best sort of 
plants, herbs, salads for our kitchen-gardens 
themselves), and the best fruits, not ripening 
without the advantage of walls and palisadoes, 
by reflection of the faint heat we receive from 
the sun, our gardens are made of smaller com- 
pass, seldom exceeding four, six, or eight acres ; 
enclosed with walls, and laid out in a manner 
wholly for advantage of fruits, flowers, and the 
product of kitchen -gardens in all sorts of herbs, 
salads, plants, and legumes, for the common 
use of tables. 

These are usually the gardens of England and 
Holland, as the first sort are those of Italy, and 
were so of old. In the more temperate parts of 
France, and in Brabant (where I take gardening 
to be at its greatest height), they are composed 
of both sorts, the extent more spacious than 
ours ; part laid out for flowers, others for fruits ; 
some standards, some against walls or palisa- 
does, some for forest trees, and groves for 
shade, some parts wild, some exact ; and foun- 
tains much in request among them. 

But after so much ramble into ancient times, 
and remote places, to return home and consider 
the present way and humor of our gardening in 



Sir William temple 105 



England ; which seem to have grown into such 
vogue, and to have been so mightily improved 
in three or four and twenty years of his Ma- 
jesty's reign, that perhaps few countries are 
before us, either in the elegance of our gardens, 
or in the number of our plants ; and, I believe, 
none equal us in the variety of fruits which may 
be justly called good ; and from the earliest 
cherry and strawberry, to the last apples and 
pears, may furnish every day of the circling 
year. For the taste and perfection of what we 
esteem the best, I may truly say, that the 
French, who have eaten my grapes and peaches 
at Sheen, in no very ill year, have generally 
concluded, that the last are as good as any they 
have eaten in France, on this side of Fontaine- 
bleau ; and the first as good as any they have eat 
in Gascony ; I mean those which come from the 
stone, and are properly called peaches, not 
those which are hard, and are termed pavies ; 
for these cannot grow in too warm a climate, 
nor ever be good in a cold ; and are better at 
Madrid, than in Gascony itself. Italians have 
agreed, my white figs to be as good as any of 
that sort in Italy, which is the earlier kind of 
white fig there ; for in the latter kind, and the 
blue, we cannot come near the warm climates, 
no more than in the Frontignac or Muscat 
grape. 



io6 xibe (Barren 



My orange-trees are as large as any I saw 
when I was young in France, except those 
of Fontainebleau, or what I have seen since in 
the Low Countries, except some very old ones 
in the Prince of Orange's ; as laden with 
flowers as any can well be, as full of fruit as I 
suffer or desire them, and as well tasted as are 
commonly brought over, except the best sorts 
of Seville and Portugal. And thus much I could 
not but say in defence of our climate, which 
is so much and so generally decried abroad, by 
those who never saw it ; or, if they have been 
here have yet perhaps seen no more of it than 
what belongs to inns, or to taverns and ordi- 
naries ; who accuse our country for their own 
defaults, and speak ill, not only of our gardens 
and houses, but of our humors, our breeding, 
our customs and manners of life, by what they 
have observed of the meaner and baser sort 
of mankind ; and of company among us, be- 
cause they wanted themselves, perhaps, either 
fortune or birth, either quality or merit, to 
introduce them among the good. 

I must needs add one thing more in favor of 
our climate, which I heard the king say, and I 
thought new and right, and truly like a king 
of England, that loved and esteemed his own 
country; it was in reply to some of the com- 
pany that were reviling our climate, and 



Sir TOlliam temple 107 

extolling those of Italy and Spain, or at least 
of France : he said, he thought that was the best 
climate, where he could be abroad in the air 
with pleasure, or at least without trouble or 
inconvenience, the most days of the year, and 
the most hours of the day ; and this, he thought, 
he could be in England, more than in any 
country he knew of in Europe. And I believe 
it is true, not only of the hot and cold, but even 
among our neighbors in France, and the Low 
Countries themselves ; where the heats or the 
colds, and changes of seasons, are less treatable 
than they are with us. 

The truth is, our climate wants no heat to 
produce excellent fruits ; and the default of it 
is only the short season of our heats or sum- 
mers, by which many of the latter are left 
behind, and imperfect with us. But all such 
as are ripe before the end of August are, for 
aught I know, as good with us as anywhere 
else. This makes me esteem the true region 
of gardens in England, to be the compass of 
ten miles about London ; where the accidental 
warmth of air from the fires and steams of so 
vast a town makes fruits, as well as corn, a great 
deal forwarder than in Hampshire or Wiltshire, 
though more southward by a full degree. 

There are, besides the temper of our climate, 
two things particular to us, that contribute 



io8 £be <3arDen 



much to the beauty and elegance of our gar- 
dens, which are the gravel of our walks, and 
the fineness and almost perpetual greenness of 
our turf. The first is not known anywhere else, 
which leaves all their dry walks, in other coun- 
tries, very unpleasant and uneasy. The other 
cannot be found in France or in Holland as we 
have it, the soil not admitting that fineness of 
blade in Holland, nor the sun that greenness in 
France, during most of the summer ; nor indeed 
is it to be found but in the finest of our soils. 

Whoever begins a garden, ought, in the first 
place and above all, to consider the soil, upon 
which the taste not only of his fruits, but his 
legumes, and even herbs and salads, will wholly 
depend ; and the default of soil is without rem- 
edy : for, although all borders of fruit may be 
made with what earth you please (if you will 
be at the charge), yet it must be renewed in two 
or three years, or -it runs into the nature of the 
ground where it is brought. Old trees spread 
their roots farther than anybody's care extends, 
or the forms of the garden will allow ; and, after 
all, where the soil about you is ill, the air is too 
in a degree, and has influence upon the taste 
of fruit. What Horace says of the productions 
of kitchen-gardens, under the name of caulis, 
is true of all the best sorts of fruits, and may 
determine the choice of soil for all gardens : 



Sir William temple 109 



Caule suburbano, qui siccis crevit in agris, 
Dulcior ; irriguis nihil est elutius hortis. 

"Plants from dry fields those of the town excel ; 
Nothing more tasteless is than watered grounds." 

Any man had better throw away his care and 
his money upon any thing else, than upon a 
garden in wet or moist ground. Peaches and 
grapes will have no taste but upon a sand or 
gravel ; but the richer these are, the better ; 
and neither salads, pease, or beans, have at all 
the taste upon a clay or rich earth, as they have 
upon either of the others, though the size and 
color of fruits and plants may, perhaps, be more 
upon the worse soils. 

Next to your choice of soil, is to suit your 
plants to your ground, since of this every one 
is not master : though perhaps Varro's judg- 
ment, upon this case, is the wisest and the best ; 
for to one that asked him, what he should do if 
his father or ancestors had left him a seat in an 
ill air, or upon an ill soil, he answered : " Why, 
sell it, and buy another in good." "But what 
if I cannot get half the worth ? " " Why, then 
take a quarter ; but however sell it for any 
thing, rather than live upon it." 

Of all sorts of soil, the best is that upon a 
sandy gravel, or a rosiny sand ; whoever lies 
upon either of these may run boldly into all the 
best sort of peaches and grapes, how shallow 



no tlbe (Barren 



soever the turf be upon them ; and whatever 
other tree will thrive in these soils, the fruits 
shall be of a much finer taste than any other ; 
a richer soil will do well enough for apricots, 
plums, pears, or figs ; but still the more of the 
sand in your earth the better, and the worse 
the more of the clay, which is proper for oaks, 
and no other tree that I know of. 

Fruits should be suited to the climate among 
us, as well as the soil ; for there are degrees of 
one and the other in England, where it is to 
little purpose to plant any of the best fruits, 
as peaches or grapes, hardly I doubt beyond 
Northamptonshire, at the farthest northwards ; 
and I thought it very prudent in a gentleman 
of my friends in Staffordshire, who is a great 
lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, 
though his soil be good enough, than to the 
perfection of plums ; and in these (by bestowing 
south walls upon them) he has very well suc- 
ceeded, which he could never have done in 
attempts upon peaches and grapes ; and a good 
plum is certainly better that an ill peach. 

When I was at Cosevelt, with that bishop of 
Munster that made so much noise in his time, 
I observed no other trees but cherries in a great 
garden he had made. He told me the reason 
was because he found no other fruit would 
ripen well in that climate, or upon that soil ; 



Sir MiUtam temple m 

and therefore, instead of being curious in 
others, he had only been so in the sorts of that, 
whereof he had so many, as never to be without 
them from May to the end of September. 

As to the size of a garden, which will, per- 
haps, in time, grow extravagant among us, I 
think from four or five to seven or eight acres 
is as much as any gentleman need design, and 
will furnish as much of all that is expected 
from it, as any nobleman will have occasion to 
use in his family. 

In every garden four things are necessary to 
be provided for : flowers, fruit, shade, and 
water ; and whoever lays out a garden, without 
all these, must not pretend in it any perfection ; 
it ought to lie to the best parts of the house, or 
to those of the master's commonest use, so as to 
be but like one of the rooms out of which you 
step into another. The part of your garden next 
your house (besides the walks that go round it) 
should be a parterre for flowers, or grass-plots 
bordered with flowers ; or if, according to the 
newest mode, it be cast all into grass-plots and 
gravel walks, the dryness of these should be 
relieved with fountains, and the plainness of 
those with statues ; otherwise, if large, they 
have an ill effect upon the eye. However, the 
part next the house should be open, and no 
other fruit but upon the walls. If this take up 



n2 ftbe <3arfcen 



one half of the garden, the other should be 
fruit-trees, unless some grove for shade lie in 
the middle. If it take up a third part only, 
then the next third may be dwarf-trees, and the 
last standard fruit ; or else the second part fruit- 
trees, and the third all sorts of winter-greens, 
which provide for all seasons of the year. 

I will not enter upon any account of flow T ers, 
having only pleased myself with seeing or 
smelling them, and not troubled myself with 
the care, which is more the ladies' part than 
the men's ; but the success is wholly in the 
gardener. For fruits, the best we have in 
England, or, I believe, can ever hope for, are, 
of peaches, the white and red maudlin, the 
minion, the chevereuse, the ramboullet, the 
musk, the admirable, which is late ; all the rest 
are either varied by names, or not to be named 
with these, nor worth troubling a garden, in my 
opinion. Of the pavies or hard peaches, I know 
none good here but the Newington, nor will 
that easily hang till it is full ripe. The forward 
peaches are to be esteemed only because they 
are early, but should find room in a good gar- 
den, at least the white and brown nutmeg, the 
Persian, and the violet musk. The only good 
nectarines are the murry and the French ; of 
these there are two sorts — one very round, and 
the other something long — but the round is the 



Sir TOlliam temple 113 

best ; of the murry there are several sorts, but, 
being all hard, they are seldom well ripened 
with us. 

Of grapes, the best are the chasselas, which is 
the better sort of our white muscadine (as the 
usual name was about Sheen) ; it is called the 
pearl-grape, and ripens well enough in common 
years, but not so well as the common black, or 
currant, which is something a worse grape. 
The parsley is good, and proper enough to our 
climate ; but all white frontiniacs are difficult, 
and seldom ripen, unless in extraordinary sum- 
mers. 

I have had the honor of bringing over four 
sorts into England : the arboyse, from the 
Franche Compte, which is a small white grape, 
or rather runs into some small and some great 
upon the same bunch ; it agrees well with our 
climate, but is very choice in soil, and must 
have a sharp gravel ; it is the most delicious of 
all grapes that are not muscat. The Burgundy, 
which is a grizelin or pale red, and of all others 
is surest to ripen in our climate, so that I have 
never known them to fail one summer these 
fifteen years, when all others have ; and have 
had it very good upon the east wall. A black 
muscat, which is called the dowager, and ripens 
as well as the common white grape. And the 
fourth is the grizelin frontignac, being of that 



H4 Gbe (Barren 



color, and the highest of that taste, and the 
noblest of all grapes I ever ate in England ; 
but requires the hottest wall and the sharpest 
gravel ; and must be favored by the summer 
too, to be very good. All these are, I suppose, 
by this time, pretty common among some gar- 
deners in my neighborhood, as well as several 
persons of quality ; for I have ever thought all 
things of this kind, the commoner they are 
made, the better. 

Of figs there are among us the white, the 
blue, and the tawny ; the last is very small, 
bears ill, and I think but a bawble. Of the 
blue there are two or three sorts, but little dif- 
ferent, one something longer than the other ; 
but that kind which smells most is ever the 
best. Of the white I know but two sorts, and 
both excellent, one ripe in the beginning of 
July, the other in the end of September, and is 
yellower than the first ; but this hard to be 
found among us, and difficult to raise, though 
an excellent fruit. 

Of apricots the best are the common old sort, 
and the largest masculin ; of which this last is 
much improved by budding upon a peach 
stock. I esteem none of this fruit but the 
Brussels apricot, which grows a standard, and 
is one of the best fruits we have, and which I 
first brought over among us. 



Sir TKUUUam Gemple 115 

The number of good pears, especially sum- 
mer, is very great, but the best are the blan- 
quet, robin, rousselet, rosati, sans, pepin, 
jargonel. Of the autumn, the buree, the verte- 
longue, and the bergamot. Of the winter, the 
vergoluz, chasseray, St. Michael, St. Germain, 
and ambret. I esteem the bon-cretien with us 
good for nothing but to bake. 

Of plums, the best are St. Julian, St. Cath- 
erine, white and blue pedrigon, queen-mother, 
Sheen plum, and cheston. 

Beyond the sorts I have named, none I think 
need trouble himself, but multiply these rather 
than make room for more kinds ; and I am 
content to leave this register, having been so 
often desired it by my friends, upon their de- 
signs of gardening. 

I need say nothing of apples, being so well 
known among us ; but the best of our climate, 
and I believe of all others, is the golden pip- 
pin, and for all sorts of uses ; the next is the 
Kentish pippin ; but these I think are as far 
from their perfection with us as grapes, and 
yield to those of Normandy, as these to those 
of Anjou, and even these to those in Gascony. 
In other fruits the defect of sun is in a great 
measure supplied by the advantage of walls. 

The next care to that of suiting trees with 
the soil is that of suiting fruits to the position 



n6 XLbc Garden 



of walls : grapes, peaches, and winter-pears, to 
be good, must be planted upon full south, or 
southeast ; figs are best upon southeast, but 
will do well upon east and southwest ; the 
west are proper for cherries, plums, or apri- 
cots, but all of them are improved by a south 
wall both as to early and taste ; north, north- 
west, or northeast deserve nothing but greens ; 
these should be divided by woodbines or jessa- 
mines between every green, and the other walls 
by a vine between every fruit-tree ; the best 
sorts upon the south walls, the common white 
and black upon east and west, because the 
other trees being many of them (especially 
peaches) very transitory — some apt to die with 
hard winters, others to be cut down to make 
room for new fruits ; without this method the 
walls are left for several years unfurnished, 
whereas the vines on each side cover the void 
space in one summer, and when the other trees 
are grown, make only a pillar between them 
of two or three feet broad. 

Whoever would have the best fruits, in the 
most perfection our climate will allow, should 
not only take care of giving them as much 
sun, but also as much air as he can ; no tree, 
unless dwarf, should be suffered to grow within 
forty feet of your best walls, but the farther 
they lie open is still the better. Of all others, 



Sir TKaUlfam temple 117 

this care is most necessary in vines, which are 
observed abroad to make the best wines, where 
they lie upon sides of hills, and so most ex- 
posed to air and the winds. The way of prun- 
ing them too is best learned from the vine- 
yards, where you see nothing in winter but 
what looks like a dead stump ; and upon our 
walls they should be left but like a ragged 
staff, not above two or three eyes at most upon 
the bearing branches, and the lower the vine 
and fewer the branches, the grapes will be still 
the better. 

The best figure of a garden is either a square 
or an oblong, and either upon a flat or a de- 
scent ; they have all their beauties, but the 
best I esteem an oblong upon a descent. The 
beauty, the air, the view make amends for the 
I expense, which is very great in finishing and 
'i supporting the terrace-walks, in levelling the 
' parterres, and in the stone stairs that are neces- 
sary from one to the other. 

The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, 
either at home or abroad, was that of Moor 
Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about 
thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess 
of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest wits 
of her time, and celebrated by Doctor Donne, 
and with very great care, excellent contrivance, 
and much cost ; but greater sums may be thrown 



n8 Gbe <3arfcen 



away without effect or honor, if there want 
sense in proportion to money, or if nature be 
not followed, which I take to be the great rule 
in this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far 
as the conduct not only of our lives, but our 
governments. And whether the greatest of 
mortal men should attempt the forcing of na- 
ture, may best be judged by observing how 
seldom God Almighty does it himself, by so 
few true and undisputed miracles as we see or 
hear of in the world. For my own part, I know 
not three wiser precepts for the conduct either 
of princes or private man, than 



-Servare modiim , finemque tueri, 



Naturamque sequi. 

Because I take the garden I have named to 
have been in all kinds the most beautiful and 
perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, 
that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a 
model to those that meet with such a situation, 
and are above the regards of common expense. 
It lies on the side of a hill (upon which the 
house stands) but not very steep. The length 
of the house, where the best rooms and of 
most use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth 
of the garden ; the great parlor opens into the 
middle of a terrace gravel-walk that lies even 



Sir TKflilliam temple 119 



with it, and which may be, as I remember, 
about three hundred paces long, and broad in 
proportion ; the border set with standard lau- 
rels, and at large distances, which have the 
beauty of orange-trees, out of flower and fruit ; 
from this walk are three descents by many 
stone steps, in the middle and at each end, into 
a very large parterre. This is divided into 
quarters by gravel-walks, and adorned with 
two fountains and eight statues in the several 
quarters ; at the end of the terrace-walk are 
two summer-houses, and the sides of the par- 
terre are ranged with two large cloisters, open 
to the garden, upon arches of stone, and end- 
ing with two other summer-houses even with 
the cloisters, which are paved with stone, and 
designed for walks of shade, there being none 
other in the whole parterre. Over these two 
cloisters are two terraces covered with lead, 
and fenced with balusters, and the passage into 
these airy walks is out of the two summer- 
houses, at the end of the first terrace-walk. 
The cloister facing the south is covered with 
vines, and would have been proper for an 
orange-house, and the other for myrtles ; or 
other more common greens, and had, I doubt 
not, been cast for that purpose, if this piece of 
gardening had been then in as much vogue as 
it is now. 



i2o Cbe (Sarfcen 



From the middle of the parterre is a descent 
by many steps flying on each side of a grotto 
that lies between them (covered with lead, and 
flat) into the lower garden, which is all fruit- 
trees, ranged about the several quarters of a 
wilderness which is very shady ; the walks here 
are all green, the grotto embellished with fig- 
ures of shell-rock-work, fountains, and water- 
works. If the hill had not ended with the lower 
garden, and the walls were not bounded by a 
common way that goes through the park, they 
might have added a third quarter of all greens ; 
but this want is supplied by a garden on the 
other side of the house, which is all of that sort, 
very wild, shady, and adorned with rough rock- 
work and fountains. 

This was Moor Park, when I was acquainted 
with it, and the sweetest place, I think, that I 
have seen in my life, either before or since, at 
home or abroad ; what it is now I can give little 
account, having passed through several hands 
that have made great changes in gardens as 
well as houses ; but the remembrance of what 
it was is too pleasant ever to forget, and there- 
fore I do not believe to have mistaken the fig- 
ure of it, which may serve for a pattern to the 
best gardens of our manner, and that are most 
proper for our country and climate. 

What I have said, of the best forms of gar- 



Sir William temple 121 

dens is meant only of such as are in some sort 
regular, for there may be other forms wholly 
irregular that may, for aught I know, have 
more beauty than any of the others ; but they 
must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions 
of nature in the seat, or some great race of 
fancy or judgment in the contrivance, which 
may reduce many disagreeing parts into some 
figure which shall yet, upon the whole, be very 
agreeable. Something of this I have seen in 
some places, but heard more of it from others 
who have lived much among the Chinese — a 
people whose way of thinking seems to lie as 
wide of ours in Europe as their country does. 
Among us the beauty of building and planting 
is placed chiefly in some certain proportions, 
symmetries, or uniformities — our walks and our 
trees ranged so as to answer one another, and 
at exact distances. The Chinese scorn this 
way of planting, and say, a boy, that can tell an 
hundred, may plant walks of trees in straight 
lines, and over against one another, and to 
what length and extent he pleases. But their 
greatest reach of imagination is employed in 
contriving figures, where the beauty shall be 
great and strike the eye, but without any order 
or disposition of parts that shall be commonly 
or easily observed ; and, though we have hard- 
ly any notion of this sort of beauty, yet they 



i22 Gbe (SarDen 



have a particular word to express it, and where 
they find it hit their eye at first sight, they say 
the sharawadgi is fine or is admirable, or any 
such expression of esteem. And whoever ob- 
serves the work upon the best India gowns, or the 
painting upon their best screens or purcellans, 
will find their beauty is all of this kind, — that 
is, without order. But I should hardly advise 
any of these attempts in the figure of gardens 
among us ; they are adventures of too hard 
achievement for any common hands ; and, 
though there may be more honor if they suc- 
ceed well, yet there is more dishonor if they 
fail, and it is twenty to one they will ; whereas, 
in regular figures, it is hard to make any great 
and remarkable faults. 

The picture I have met with in some relations 
of a garden made by a Dutch governor of their 
colony, upon the Cape de Bonne Bsperance, is 
admirable, and described to be of an oblong 
figure, very large extent, and divided into four 
quarters by long and crossed walks, ranged 
with all sorts of orange-trees, lemons, limes, 
and citrons ; each of these four quarters is 
planted with the trees, fruits, flowers, and 
plants that are native and proper to each of 
the four parts of the world ; so as in this one 
inclosure are to be found the several gardens of 
Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. There could 



Sir TKUilliam temple 123 

not be, in my mind, a greater thought of a gar- 
dener, nor a nobler idea of a garden, nor better 
suited or chosen for the climate, which is about 
thirty degrees, and may pass for the Hesperides 
of our age, whatever or wherever the other was. 
Yet this is agreed by all to have been in the 
islands or continent upon the southwest of 
Africa ; but what their forms or their fruits 
were, none, that I know, pretend to tell ; nor 
whether their golden apples were for taste, or 
only for sight, as those of Montezuma were in 
Mexico, who had large trees, with stocks, 
branches, leaves, and fruits, all admirably com- 
posed and wrought of gold ; but this was only 
stupendous in cost and art, and answers not at 
all, in my opinion, the delicious varieties of 
nature in other gardens. 

What I have said of gardening is perhaps 
enough for any gentleman to know, so as to 
make no great faults, nor to be much imposed 
upon in the designs of that kind, which I think 
ought to be applauded and encouraged in all 
countries ; that and building being a sort of 
creation, that raise beautiful fabrics and figures 
out of nothing, that make the convenience and 
pleasure of all private habitations, that employ 
many hands and circulate much money among 
the poorer sort and artisans, that are a public 
service to one's country, by the example as well 



i24 Gbe <3ar£>en 



as effect, which adorn the scene, improve the 
earth, and even the air itself in some degree. 
The rest that belongs to this subject must be a 
gardener's part ; upon whose skill, diligence, 
and care the beauty of the grounds and excel- 
lence of the fruits will much depend. Though 
if the soil and sorts be well chosen, well suited, 
and disposed to the walls, the ignorance or 
carelessness of the servants can hardly leave 
the master disappointed. 

I will not enter further upon his trade, than 
by three short directions or advices : first, in all 
plantations, either for his master or himself, 
to draw his trees out of some nursery that is 
upon a leaner and lighter soil than his own 
where he removes them ; without this care they 
will not thrive in several years, perhaps never ; 
and must make way for new, which should be 
avoided all that can be ; for life is too short 
and uncertain to be renewing often your plan- 
tations. The walls of your garden, without 
their furniture, look as ill as those of your 
house ; so that you cannot dig up your garden 
too often, nor too seldom cut them down. 

The second is, in all trees you raise, to have 
some regard to the stock, as well as the graft or 
bud ; for the first will have a share in giving 
taste and season to the fruits it produces, how 
little soever it is usually observed by our gar- 



Sir TKHtlliam tXemple 125 

deners. I have found grafts of the same tree 
upon a bon-cretien stock bring chasseray pears 
that lasted till March, but with a rind green and 
rough ; and others, upon a metre-john stock, 
with a smooth and yellow skin, which were 
rotten in November. I am apt to think, all the 
difference between the St. Michael and the 
ambrette pear (which has puzzled our gar- 
deners) is only what comes from this variety of 
the stocks ; and by this, perhaps, as well as by 
raising from stones and kernels, most of the 
new fruits are produced every age. So the 
grafting a crab upon a white thorn brings the 
lazarolli, a fruit esteemed at Rome, though 
I do not find it worth cultivating here ; and 
I believe the cidrato (or hermaphrodite) came 
from budding a citron upon an orange. The 
best peaches are raised by buds of the best 
fruits upon stocks growing from stones of the 
best peaches ; and so the best apples and pears, 
from the best kinds grafted upon stocks from 
kernels also of the best sorts, with respect to 
the season, as well as beauty and taste. And I 
believe so many excellent winter-pears, as have 
come into France since forty years, may have 
been found out by grafting summer-pears of the 
finest taste and most water upon winter stocks. 
The third advice is, to take the greatest care 
and pains in preserving your trees from the 



i26 Gbe <3arfcen 



worst disease, to which those of the best fruits 
are subject in the best soils and upon the best 
walls. It is what has not been (that I know of) 
taken notice of with us, till I was forced to ob- 
serve it by the experience of my gardens, though 
I have since met with it in books, both ancient 
and modern. I found my vines, peaches, apri- 
cots, and plums upon my best south walls, and 
sometimes upon my west, apt for several years 
to a soot or smuttiness upon their leaves first, 
and then upon their fruits, which were good for 
nothing the years they were so affected. My 
orange-trees were likewise subject to it, and 
never prospered while they were so ; and I have 
known some collections quite destroyed by it. 
But I cannot say that ever I found either my 
figs or pears infected with it, nor any trees upon 
my east walls, though I do not well conjecture 
at the reason. The rest were so spoiled with it, 
that I complained to several of the oldest and 
best gardeners of England, who knew nothing 
of it, but that they often fell into the same 
misfortune, and esteemed it some blight of 
spring. I observed after some years that the 
diseased trees had very frequent, upon their 
stocks and branches, a small insect of a dark- 
brown color, figured like a shield, and about 
the size of a large wheat-corn ; they stuck close 
to the bark, and in many cases covered it, 



Sir William temple 127 

especially about the joints ; in winter they are 
dry and thin-shelled, but in spring they begin 
to grow soft and to fill with moisture, and to 
throw a spawn, like a black dust, upon the 
stocks, as well as the leaves and fruits. 

I met afterwards with the mention of this 
disease, as known among orange-trees, in a 
book written upon that subject in Holland, and 
since in Pausanias, as a thing so much taken 
notice of in Greece, that the author describes a 
certain sort of earth which cures pediculos vitis, 
or the lice of the vine. This is of all others the 
most pestilent disease of the best fruit-trees, and 
upon the very best soils of gravel and sand 
(especially where they are too hungry), and is 
so contagious, that it is propagated to new 
plants raised from old trees that are infected, 
and spreads to new ones that are planted near 
them, which makes me imagine that it lies 
in the root, and that the best cure were by 
application there. But I have tried all sorts of 
soil without effect, and can prescribe no other 
remedy than to prune your trees as close as you 
can, especially the tainted wood, then to wash 
them very clean with a wet brush, so as not to 
leave one shell upon them that you can discern ; 
and upon your oranges to pick off every one 
that you can find by turning every leaf, as well 
as brushing clean the stocks and branches. 



i28 £be (Barren 



Without these cares and diligences you had 
better root up any trees that are infected, renew 
all the mould in your borders or boxes, and 
plant new sound trees, rather than suffer the 
disappointments and vexation of your old 
ones. 

I may perhaps be allowed to know something 
of this trade, since I have so long allowed my- 
self to be good for nothing else, which few men 
will do, or enjoy their gardens, without often 
looking abroad to see how other matters play, 
what motions in the state, and what invitations 
they may hope for into other scenes. 

For my own part, as the country life, and 
this part of it more particularly, were the incli- 
nation of my youth itself, so they are the pleas- 
ure of my age ; and I can truly say that, among 
many great employments that have fallen to 
my share, I have never asked or sought for any 
one of them, but often endeavored to escape 
from them, into the ease and freedom of a pri- 
vate scene, where a man may go his own way 
and his own pace in the common paths or circles 



of life. 



Inter cuncta leges et per cunctabere dodos 
Qua ratione queas traducere leniter tzvum, 
Quid minuatcurcB, quid te tibi reddet amicum, 
Quid pure tranquillet. honos, an dulce lucellum, 
An secretum iter, etfallentis semita vitcB. 



Sir William {Temple 12c 



"But, above all, the learned read, and ask 
By what means you may gently pass your age, 
What lessens care, what makes thee thine own friend 
"What truly calms the mind ; honor, or wealth, 
Or else a private path of stealing life." 

These are questions that a man ought at least 
to ask himself, whether he asks others or no, 
and to choose his course of life rather by his 
own humor and temper than by common acci- 
dents or advice of friends. ; at least, if the Span- 
ish proverb be true, that a fool knows more in 
his own house than a wise man in another's. 

The measure of choosing well is, whether a 
man likes what he has chosen ; which, I thank 
God, has befallen me ; and though, among the 
follies of my life, building and planting have 
not been the least, and have cost me more than 
I have the confidence to own, yet they have 
been fully recompensed by the sweetness and 
satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my 
resolution taken of never entering again into 
any public employments, I have passed five 
years without ever going once to town, though 
I am almost in sight of it, and have a house 
there always ready to receive me. Nor has this 
been any sort of affectation, as some have 
thought it, but a mere want of desire or humor 
to make so small a remove ; for when I am in 
this corner, I can truly say, with Horace : 



130 Zhc <3arfcen 



" Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus, 
Quid sentire putas, quid credis, amice, precari ? 
Sit mihi, quod nunc est, etiam minus, ut mihi vivam 
Quod superest <zvi, si quid superesse volunt Di. 
Sit bona librorum, et proviscs frugis in annum 
Copia, ne fluitem dubi<z spe pendulus hom, 
Hoc satis est orasse Jovem , qui donat et aufert." 

Me when the cold Digentian stream revives, 
What does my friend believe I think or ask ? 
I,et nie yet less possess, so I may live, 
Whate'er of life remains, unto myself. 
May I have books enough, and one year's store, 
Not to depend upon each doubtful hour ; 
This is enough of mighty Jove to pray, 
Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away. 

That which makes the cares of gardening 
more necessary, or at least more excusable, is, 
that all men eat fruit that can get it ; so as the 
choice is only, whether one will eat good or ill ; 
and between these the difference is not greater 
in point of taste and delicacy than it is of 
health : for the first I will only say that who- 
ever has used to eat good will do very great 
penance when he comes to ill ; and for the 
other, I think nothing is more evident than as 
ill or unripe fruit is extremely unwholesome, 
and causes so many untimely deaths, or so much 
sickness about autumn, in all great cities where 
it is greedily sold as well as eaten ; so no part 
of diet, in any season, is so healthful, so natural, 



Sir TOUiam {Temple 131 

and so agreeable to the stomach, as good and 
well-ripened fruits ; for this I make the meas- 
ure of their being good : and, let the kinds be 
what they will, if they will not ripen perfectly 
in our climate, they are better never planted, 
or never eaten. I can say it for myself at least, 
and all my friends, that the season of summer 
fruits is ever the season of health with us, which 
I reckon from the beginning of June to the end 
of September ; and for all sicknesses of the 
stomach (from which most others are judged to 
proceed), I do not think any that are, like me, 
the most subject to them, shall complain when- 
ever they eat thirty or forty cherries before 
meals, or the like proportion of strawberries, 
white figs, soft peaches, or grapes perfectly 
ripe. But these after Michaelmas I do not think 
wholesome with us, unless attended by some fit 
of hot and dry weather, more than is usual 
after that season ; when the frosts or the rain 
hath taken them, they grow dangerous, and 
nothing but the autumn and winter pears are 
to be reckoned in season, besides apples, which, 
with cherries, are of all others the most inno- 
cent food, and perhaps the best physic. Now 
whoever will be sure to eat good fruit must do 
it out of a garden of his own ; for, besides the 
choice so necessary in the sorts, the soil, and so 
many other circumstances that go to compose a 



132 tTbe Garfcett 



good garden, or produce good fruits, there is 
something very nice in gathering them, and 
choosing the best, even from the same tree. 
The best sorts of all among us, which I esteem 
the white figs and the soft peaches, will not 
carry without suffering. The best fruit that is 
bought has no more of the master's care than 
how to raise the greatest gains ; his business is 
to have as much fruit as he can upon a few 
trees ; whereas the way to have it excellent is 
to have but little upon many trees. So that for 
all things out of a garden, either of salads or 
fruits, a poor man will eat better, that has one 
of his own, than a rich man that has none. And 
this is all I think of necessary and useful to be 
known upon this subject. 





THE SPECTATOR. 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 



Wednesday, June 25, 1712. 

Alterius sic 

Altera poscit opem res et conjurat amice.— Hor. 

IF we consider the works of nature and art, 
as they are qualified to entertain the imagi- 
nation, we shall find the last very defective, in 
comparison of the former ; for though they may 
sometimes appear as beautiful or strange, they 
can have nothing in them of that vastness and 
immensity, which afford so great an entertain- 
ment to the mind of the beholder. The one 
may be as polite and delicate as the other, but 
can never show herself so august and magnifi- 
cent in the design. There is something more 
bold and masterly in the rough, careless strokes 
of nature, than in the nice touches and embel- 
lishments of art. The beauties of the most 



i34 Gbe (SarDen 



stately garden or palace lie in a narrow com- 
pass, the imagination immediately runs them 
over, and requires something else to gratify her ; 
but, in the wide fields of nature, the sight 
wanders up and down without confinement, 
and is fed with an infinite variety of images, 
without any certain stint or number. For this 
reason we always find the poet in love with a 
country life, where nature appears in the great- 
est perfection, and furnishes out all those scenes 
that are most apt to delight the imagination. 

Scriptorum chorus omnis amat netnus etfugit urbes. 

— HOR. 

To grottos and to groves we run, 

To ease and silence, ev'ry muse's son. 

— Pope. 
Hie secura quies, et nescia fallere vita, 
Dives opum variarum ; hie latis otia fundis, 
Speluncce, vivique lacus, hie frigida Tempe, 
Mugitusque bourn, mollesque stib arbore somni. 

— VlRG. 

Here easy quiet, a secure retreat, 
A harmless life, that knows not how to cheat, 
With home-bred plenty the rich owner bless, 
And rural pleasures crown his happiness, 
Unvex'd with quarrels, undisturb'd with noise, 
The country king his peaceful realm enjoys : 
Cool grots, and living lakes, the flow'ry pride 
Of meads, and streams that through the valley glide ; 
And shady groves that easy sleep invite, 
And, after toilsome days, a sweet repose at night. 

— Dryden. 



Zhc Spectator 135 

But though there are several of these wild 
scenes that are more delightful than any arti- 
ficial shows, yet we find the works of nature 
still more pleasant, the more they resemble 
those of art. For in this case our pleasure rises 
from a double principle, from the agreeableness 
of the objects to the eye, and from their simili- 
tude to other objects. We are pleased as well 
with comparing their beauties as with surveying 
them, and can represent them to our minds 
either as copies or originals. Hence it is that 
we take delight in a prospect which is well laid 
out, and diversified with fields and meadows, 
woods and rivers ; in those accidental land- 
scapes of trees, clouds, and cities that are 
sometimes found in the veins of marble ; in 
the curious fretwork of rocks and grottos ; 
and, in a word, in any thing that hath such a 
variety or regularity as may seem the effect 
of design, in what we call the works of chance. 

If the products of nature rise in value accord- 
ing as they more or less resemble those of art, 
we may be sure that artificial works receive a 
greater advantage from their resemblance of 
such as are natural, because here the similitude 
is not only pleasant, but the pattern more per- 
fect. The prettiest landscape I ever saw was 
one drawn on the walls of a dark room, which 
stood opposite on one side to a navigable river, 



136 XZhe Garden 



and on the other to a park. The experiment 
is very common in optics. Here you might 
discover the waves and fluctuations of the 
water in strong and proper colors, with the 
picture of a ship entering at one end, and sail- 
ing by degrees through the whole piece. On 
another there appeared the green shadows of 
trees, waving to and fro with the wind, and 
herds of deer among them in miniature, leap- 
ing about upon the wall. I must confess the 
novelty of such a sight may be one occasion 
of its pleasantness to the imagination, but cer- 
tainly the chief reason is its near resemblance 
to nature, as it does not only, like other pic- 
tures, give the color and figure, but the mo- 
tion of the things it represents. 

We have before observed that there is gener- 
ally in nature something more grand and 
august than what we meet with in the curi- 
osities of art. When, therefore, we see this 
imitated in any measure, it gives us a nobler 
and more exalted kind of pleasure than what 
we receive from the nicer and more accurate pro- 
ductions of art. On this account our English 
gardens are not so entertaining to the fancy as 
those in France or Italy, where we see a large 
extent of ground covered over with an agreeable 
mixture of garden and forest, which represent 
everywhere an artificial rudeness, much more 



Gbe Spectator 137 

charming than that neatness and elegancy 
which we meet with in those of our own coun- 
try. It might, indeed, be of ill consequence to 
the public, as well as unprofitable to private 
persons, to alienate so much ground from pas- 
turage, and the plow, in many parts of a coun- 
try that is so well peopled, and cultivated to a 
far greater advantage. But why may not a 
whole estate be thrown into a kind of garden 
by frequent plantations, that may turn as much 
to the profit as the pleasure of the owner? A 
marsh overgrown with willows, or a mountain 
shaded with oaks, are not only more beautiful, 
but more beneficial, than when they lie bare and 
unadorned. Fields of corn make a pleasant 
prospect, and if the walks were a little taken 
care of that lie between them, if the natural 
embroidery of the meadows were helped and 
improved by some small additions of art, and 
the several rows of hedges set off by trees and 
flowers that the soil was capable of receiving, a 
man might make a pretty landscape of his own 
possessions. 

Writers who have given us an account of 
China tell us the inhabitants of that country 
laugh at the plantations of our Europeans, 
which are laid out by the rule and line ; be- 
cause, they say, any one may place trees in 
equal rows and uniform figures. They choose 



138 Zhe OarDen 



rather to show a genius in works of this nature, 
and therefore always conceal the art by which 
they direct themselves. They have a word, it 
seems, in their language by which they express 
the particular beauty of a plantation that thus 
strikes the imagination at first sight, without 
discovering what it is that has so agreeable an 
effect. Our British gardeners, on the contrary, 
instead of humoring nature, love to deviate 
from it as much as possible. Our trees rise in 
cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks 
of the scissors upon every plant and bush. I do 
not know whether I am singular in my opinion, 
but, for my own part, I would rather look upon 
a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion of 
boughs and branches, than when it is thus cut 
and trimmed into a mathematical figure ; and 
cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks 
infinitely more delightful than all the little 
labyrinths of the most finished parterre. But 
as our great modellers of gardens have their 
magazines of plants to dispose of, it is very 
natural for them to tear up all the beautiful 
plantations of fruit trees, and contrive a plan 
that may most turn to their own profit, in taking 
off their evergreens, and the like movable 
plants, with which their shops are plentifully 
stocked. O. 



THE SPECTATOR.* 

Tuesday, July 8, 1712. 

Frigora mitescunt Zephyris, Ver proterit AZstas 

Inieritura, sirnul 
Pomifer Autumnius fruges effudertt, et mox 

Bruma recurrit iners. — Hor. 

MR. SPECTATOR:— There is hardly any 
thing gives me a more sensible delight 
than the enjoyment of a cool still evening 
after the uneasiness of a hot sultry day. Such 
a one I passed not long ago, which made me 
rejoice when the hour was come for the sun to 
set, that I might enjoy the freshness of the 
evening in my garden, which then affords me 
the pleasantest hours I pass in the whole four 
and twenty. I immediately rose from my 
couch, and went down into it. You descend 
at first by twelve stone steps into a large 
square divided into four grass-plots, in each 

* The authorship of this paper is conjectural. Possibly 
Pope or Dr. Parnell. 



[40 Zbc (SarDen 



of which is a statue of white marble. This is 
separated from a large parterre by a low wall, 
and from thence through a pair of iron gates, you 
are led into a long broad walk of the finest turf, 
set on each side with tall yews, and on either 
hand bordered by a canal, which on the right 
divides the walk from a wilderness parted into 
variety of alleys and arbors, and on the left 
from a kind of amphitheatre, which is the re- 
ceptacle of a great number of oranges and 
myrtles. The moon shone bright, and seemed 
then most agreeably to supply the place of the 
sun, obliging me with as much light as was neces- 
sary to discover a thousand pleasing objects, 
and at the same time divested of all power of 
heat. The reflection of it in the water, the 
fanning of the wind rustling on the leaves, the 
singing of the thrush and nightingale, and the 
coolness of the walks, all conspired to make me 
lay aside all displeasing thoughts, and brought 
me into such a tranquillity of mind, as is I be- 
lieve the next happiness to that of hereafter. 
In this sweet retirement I naturally fell into the 
repetition of some lines out of a poem of Mil- 
ton's, which he entitles ' ' II Penseroso, ' ' the ideas 
of which were exquisitely suited to my present 
wanderings of thought : 

" Sweet bird ! thou shun'st the noise of folly, 
Most musical ! most melancholy ! 



tTbe Spectator 141 

Thee chantress, oft the woods among, 
I woo to hear thy evening song : 
And missing thee, I walk unseen 
On the dry smooth-shaven green, 
To behold the wand'ring moon, 
Riding near her highest noon, 
I4ke one that hath been led astray, 
Thro' the heaven's wide pathless way, 
And oft, as if her head she bow'd, 
Stooping thro' a fleecy cloud. 

" Then let some strange mysterious dream 
Wave with his wings in airy stream, 
Of lively portraiture displayed, 
Softly on my eyelids laid ; 
And as I wake, sweet music breathe 
Above, about, or underneath, 
Sent by spirits to mortals good, 
Or th' unseen Genius of the Wood." 

I reflected then upon the sweet vicissitudes of 
night and day, on the charming disposition of 
the seasons, and their return again in a per- 
petual circle ; and oh ! said I, that I could from 
these my declining years return again to my 
first spring of youth and vigor ; but that, alas ! 
is impossible. All that remains within my power 
is to soften the inconveniences I feel, with an 
easy contented mind, and the enjoyment of 
such delights as this solitude affords me. In 
this thought I sate me down on a bank of 
flowers and dropped into a slumber, which 
whether it were the effect of fumes and vapors, 



142 the (BarDett 



or my present thoughts, I know not ; but 
methoughtthe Genius of the Garden stood before 
me, and introduced into the walk where I lay 
this drama and different scenes of the revolu- 
tion of the year, which whilst I then saw, even 
in my dream, I resolved to write down and send 
to The Spectator. 

The first person whom I saw advancing tow- 
ards me was a youth of a most beautiful air and 
shape, though he seemed not yet arrived at that 
exact proportion and symmetry of parts which 
a little more time would have given him ; but, 
however, there was such a bloom in his coun- 
tenance, such satisfaction and joy, that I 
thought it the most desirable form that I had 
ever seen. He was clothed in a flowing mantle 
of green silk, interwoven with flowers. He had 
a chaplet of roses on his head, and a narcissus 
in his hand ; primroses and violets sprang up 
under his feet, and all nature was cheered at 
his approach. Flora was on one hand and Ver- 
tumnus on the other in a robe of changeable 
silk. After this I was surprised to see the 
moonbeams reflected with a sudden glare from 
armor, and to see a man completely armed 
advancing with his sword drawn. I was soon 
informed by the Genius it was Mars, who had 
long usurped a place among the attendants of 
the Spring. He made way for a softer appear- 



tTbe Spectator 143 

ance ; it was Venus, without any ornament but 
her own beauties, not so much as her own ces- 
tus, with which she had encompassed a globe, 
which she held in her right hand, and in her 
left she had a sceptre of gold. After her fol- 
lowed the Graces with their arms entwined with- 
in one another ; their girdles were loosed and 
they moved to the sound of soft music, striking 
the ground alternately with their feet. Then 
came up the three months which belong to this 
season. As March advanced towards me, there 
was, methought, in his look a louring roughness, 
which ill befitted a' month which was ranked in 
so soft a season ; but as he came forward his 
features became insensibly more mild and gen- 
tle. He smoothed his brow, and looked with so 
sweet a countenance that I could not but lament 
his departure, though he made way for April. 
He appeared in the greatest gayety imaginable, 
and had a thousand pleasures to attend him. His 
look was frequently clouded, but immediately 
returned to its first composure, and remained 
fixed in a smile. Then came May, attended by 
Cupid, with his bow strung, and in a posture 
to let fly an arrow. As he passed by methought 
I heard a confused noise of soft complaints, 
gentle ecstasies, and tender sighs of lovers : 
vows of constancy, and as many complainings of 
perfidiousness ; all which the winds wafted 



i44 Gbe (Sarfcen 



away as soon as they had reached my hearing. 
After these I saw a man advance in the full 
prime and vigor of his age ; his complexion 
was sanguine and ruddy, his hair black, and 
fell down in beautiful ringlets not beneath his 
shoulders ; a mantle of hair-colored silk hung 
loosely upon him. He advanced with a hasty 
step after the Spring, and sought out the shade 
and cool fountains which played in the garden. 
He was particularly well pleased when a troop 
of zephyrs fanned him with their wings. He 
had two companions who walked on each side 
that made him appear the most agreeable ; the 
one was Aurora, with fingers of roses, and her 
feet dewy, attired in gray. The other was 
Vesper in a robe of azure, beset with drops of 
gold, whose breath he caught whilst it passed 
over a bundle of honeysuckles and tuberoses 
which he held in his hand. Pan and Ceres 
followed them with four reapers, who danced 
a morrice to the sound of oaten pipes and 
cymbals. Then came the attendant months. 
June retained still some small likeness of the 
Spring ; but the other two seemed to step with 
a less vigorous tread, especially August, who 
seemed almost to faint, whilst for half the steps 
he took the dog-star levelled his rays full at 
his head. They passed on and made way for a 
person that seemed to bend a little under the 



Zhe Spectator 145 

weight of years ; his beard and hair, which 
were full grown, were composed of an equal 
number of black and gray ; he wore a robe 
which he had girt round him of a yellowish cast, 
not unlike the color of fallen leaves, which 
he walked upon. I thought he hardly made 
amends for expelling the foregoing scene by the 
large quantity of fruits which he bore in his 
hands. Plenty walked by his side with a 
healthy fresh countenance, pouring out from a 
horn all the various product of the year. Po- 
mona followed with a glass of cider in her 
hand, with Bacchus in a chariot drawn by 
tigers, accompanied by a whole troop of satyrs, 
fawns, and sylvans. September, who came next, 
seemed in his looks to promise a new Spring, 
and wore the livery of those months. The 
succeeding month was all soiled with the juice 
of grapes, as if he had just come from the wine- 
press. November, though he was in this division, 
yet, by the many stops he made, seemed rather 
inclined to the Winter, which followed close at 
his heels. He advanced in the shape of an old 
man in the extremity of age. The hair he had 
was so very white it seemed a real snow ; his 
eyes were red and piercing, and his beard hung 
with a great quantity of icicles. He was wrapped 
up in furs, but yet so pinched with excess of 
cold that his limbs were all contracted and his 



146 tLhc <3arDen 



body bent to the ground, so that he could not 
have supported himself had it not been for 
Comus, the God of Revels, and Necessity, the 
Mother of Fate, who sustained him on each side. 
The shape and mantle of Comus was one of 
the things that most surprised me ; as he ad- 
vanced towards me his countenance seemed 
the most desirable I had ever seen. On the fore 
part of his mantle were pictured Joy, Delight, 
and Satisfaction, with a thousand emblems of 
merriment, and jests with faces looking two 
ways at once ; but as he passed from me I w T as 
amazed at a shape so little correspondent to his 
face. His head was bald, and all the rest of 
his limbs appeared old and deformed. On the 
hinder part of his mantle were represented Mur- 
der, with dishevelled hair and a dagger all 
bloody ; Anger, in a robe of scarlet ; and Suspi- 
cion squinting with both eyes : but above all the 
most conspicuous was the battle of the Lapithae 
and the Centaurs. I detested so hideous a 
shape, and turned my eyes upon Saturn, who 
was stealing away behind him, with a scythe in 
one hand and an hour-glass in the other, unob- 
served. Behind Necessity was Vesta, the God- 
dess of Fire, with a lamp which w T as perpetually 
supplied with oil, and whose flame was eter- 
nal. She cheered the rugged brow of Necessity, 
and warmed her so far as almost to make her 



Gbe Spectator 



147 



assume the features and likeness of Choice. 
December, January, and February passed on 
after the rest, all in furs ; there was little dis- 
tinction to be made amongst them, and they 
were only more or less displeasing as they dis- 
covered more or less haste towards the grateful 
return of Spring. Z. 





THK SPECTATOR. 

JOSEPH ADDISON. 

Saturday, September 6, 1712. 

An me laudit amabilis 
Insania ? audire et videor pios 
Errare per lucos , amcence 
Quos et aqucs subeunt et aurcz. — Hor. 

SIR : — Having lately read your essay on the 
Pleasures of the Imagination , I was so taken 
with your thoughts upon some of our English 
gardens, that I cannot forbear troubling you 
with a letter upon that subject. I am one, 
you must know, who am looked upon as an 
humorist in gardening. I have several acres 
about my house, which I call my garden, and 
which a skilful gardener would not know what 
to call. It is a confusion of kitchen and par- 
terre, orchard and flower-garden, which lie so 
mixed and interwoven with one another that if 
a foreigner who had seen nothing of our coun- 
try should be conveyed into my garden at his 



XLhc Spectator 149 

first landing, he would look upon it as a natural 
wilderness, and one of the uncultivated parts 
of our country. My flowers grow up in several 
parts of the garden in the greatest luxuriancy 
and profusion. I am so far from being fond of 
any particular one, by reason of its rarity, that 
if I meet with any one in a field which pleases 
me I give it a place in my garden. By this 
means, when a stranger walks with me he is 
surprised to see several large spots of ground 
covered with ten thousand different colors, and 
has often singled out flowers that he might have 
met with under a common hedge, in a field, or 
in a meadow, as some of the greatest beauties 
of the place. The only method I observe in this 
particular, is to range in the same quarter the 
products of the same season, that they may make 
their appearance together, and compose a pic- 
ture of the greatest variety. There is the same 
irregularity in my plantations, which run into 
as great a wildness as their natures will permit. 
I take in none that do not naturally rejoice in 
the soil, and am pleased when I am walking in 
a labyrinth of my own raising, not to know 
whether the next tree I shall meet with is an ap- 
ple or an oak, an elm or a pear-tree. My kitchen 
has likewise its particular quarters assigned it ; 
for besides the wholesome luxury which that 
place abounds with, I have always thought a 



is© Zbe <3arDen 



kitchen-garden a more pleasant sight than the 
finest orangery or artificial greenhouse. I love 
to see every thing in its perfection, and am more 
pleased to survey my rows of coleworts and 
cabbages, with a thousand nameless pot-herbs, 
springing up in their full fragrancy and verdure, 
than to see the tender plants of foreign coun- 
tries kept alive by artificial heats, or withering 
in an air and soil that are not adapted to them. 
I must not omit, that there is a fountain rising 
in the upper part of my garden, which forms a 
little wandering rill, and administers to the 
pleasures as well as the plenty of the place. I 
have so conducted it that it visits most of my 
plantations ; and have taken particular care to 
let it run in the same manner as it would do in 
an open field, so that it generally passes through 
banks of violets and primroses, plats of willow, 
or other plants, that seem to be of its own pro- 
ducing. There is another circumstance in which 
I am very particular, or, as my neighbors call 
me, very whimsical : as my garden invites into 
it all the birds of the country, by offering them 
the conveniency of springs and shades, solitude 
and shelter, I do not suffer any one to destroy 
their nests in the spring, or drive them from 
their usual haunts in fruit-time. I value my 
garden more for being full of blackbirds than 
cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for 



TLhe Spectator 151 



their songs. By this means I have always the 
music of the season in its perfection, and am 
highly delighted to see the jay or the thrush 
hopping about my walks and shooting before 
my eye across the several little glades and alleys 
that I pass through. I think there are as many 
kinds of gardening as of poetry : your makers 
of parterres and flower-gardens are epigramma- 
tists and sonneteers in this art : contrivers of 
bowers and grottos, treillages and cascades, are 
romance writers. Wise and L,ondon are our 
heroic poets ; and if, as a critic, I may single out 
any passage of their works to commend, I shall 
take notice of that part in the upper garden at 
Kensington, which was at first nothing but a 
gravel-pit. It must have been a fine genius for 
gardening that could have thought of forming 
such an unsightly hollow into so beautiful an 
area, and to have hit the eye with so uncommon 
and agreeable a scene as that which it is now 
wrought into. To give this particular spot of 
ground the greater effect, they have made a very 
pleasing contrast ; for as on one side of the 
walk you see this hollow basin, with its several 
little plantations lying so conveniently under 
the eye of the beholder ; on the other side of it 
there appears a seeming mount, made up of trees 
rising one higher than another in proportion as 
they approach the centre. A spectator, who has 



152 Cbe (Bar&en 



not heard this account of it, would think this 
circular mount was not only a real one, but that 
it had been actually scooped out of that hol- 
low space which I have before mentioned. I 
never yet met with any one who had walked in 
this garden, who was not struck with that part 
of it which I have here mentioned. As for my- 
self, you will find by the account which I have 
already given you, that my compositions in gar- 
dening are altogether after the Pindaric man- 
ner, and run into the beautiful wildness of na- 
ture, without affecting the nicer elegancies of 
art. What I am now going to mention will, 
perhaps, deserve your attention more than any 
thing I have yet said. I find that in the dis- 
course which I spoke of at the beginning of my 
letter, you are against filling an English garden 
with evergreens ; and indeed I am so far of 
your opinion that I can by no means think the 
verdure of an evergreen comparable to that 
which shoots out annually and clothes our trees 
in the summer season. But I have often won- 
dered that those who are like myself, and love 
to live in gardens, have never thought of con- 
triving a winter-garden, which would consist of 
such trees only as never cast their leaves. We 
have very often little snatches of sunshine and 
fair weather in the most uncomfortable parts of 
the year ; and have frequently several days in 



tTbe Spectator 153 

November and January that are as agreeable as 
any in the finest months. At such times, there- 
fore, I think there could not be a greater pleas- 
ure than to walk in such a winter-garden as I 
have proposed. In the summer season the whole 
country blooms, and is a kind of garden, for 
which reason we are not so sensible of those 
beauties that at this time may be everywhere 
met with ; but when nature is in her desolation, 
and presents us with nothing but bleak and 
barren prospects, there is something unspeaka- 
bly cheerful in a spot of ground which is cov- 
ered with trees that smile amidst all the rigors 
of winter, and give us a view of the most gay 
season in the midst of that which is the most 
dead and melancholy. I have so far indulged 
myself in this thought, that I have set apart a 
whole acre of ground for the executing of it. 
The walls are covered with ivy instead of vines. 
The laurel, the hornbeam, and the holly, with 
many other trees and plants of the same nature, 
grow so thick in it that you cannot imagine 
a more lively scene. The glowing redness of 
the berries, with which they are hung at this 
time, vies with the verdure of their leaves, and 
are apt to inspire the heart of the beholder with 
that vernal delight which you have somewhere 
taken notice of in your former papers. It is 
very pleasant at the same time to see the several 



i54 Gbe (Barfcen 



kinds of birds retiring into this little green spot, 
and enjoying themselves among the branches 
and foliage, when my great garden, which I 
have before mentioned to you, does not afford a 
single leaf for their shelter. 

You must know, sir, that I look upon the 
pleasure which we take in a garden as one of 
the most innocent delights in human life. A 
garden was the habitation of our first parents 
before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the 
mind with calmness and tranquillity, and to lay 
all its turbulent passions at rest.* It gives us a 
great insight into the contrivance and wisdom 
of Providence, and suggests innumerable sub- 
jects for meditation. I cannot but think the 
very complacency and satisfaction which a man 
takes in these works of nature to be a laudable, 
if not a virtuous, habit of mind. For all which 
reasons I hope you will pardon the length of 
my present letter. 

I am, 

Sir, etc. 





THE GUARDIAN. - 

ALEXANDER POPE. 

Tuesday, September 29, 1713. 

Nee skro comantem 
Narcissum, aut flexi tacuissem vimen acanthi, 
Pallentesque hederas, et amantes littora myrtos. 

— Virg., Georg. iv., 122. 

" The late narcissus, and the winding trail 
Of bear's-foot, myrtles green, and ivy pale." 

— Dryden. 



ILATElvY took a particular friend of mine to 
my house in the country, not without some 
apprehension that it could afford little entertain- 
ment to a man of his polite taste, particularly 
in architecture and gardening, who had so long 
been conversant with all that is beautiful and 
great in either. But it was a pleasant surprise 
to me to hear him often declare he had found 
in my little retirement that beauty which he 
always thought wanting in the most celebrated 



156 ftbe Garden 



seats, or, if you will, villas, of the nation. This 
he described to me in those verses with which 
Martial begins one of his epigrams : 

Baiana nostri villa, Basse, Faustini, 
Non otiosis ordinata myrtetis, 
Viduaque platano , tonsilique buxeto ; 
Ingrata lati spatia detinet campi ; 
Sed rure vero barbaroque Icetatur. 

" Our friend Faustinus' country-seat I 've seen : 
No myrtles, plac'd in rows, and idly green, 
No widow'd platane, nor clipp'd box-tree there, 
The useless soil unprofitably share ; 
But simple nature's hand, with nobler grace, 
Diffuses artless beauties o'er the place." 

There is certainly something in the amiable 
simplicity of unadorned nature that spreads 
over the mind a more noble sort of tranquillity, 
and a loftier sensation of pleasure, than can be 
raised from the nicer scenes of art. 

This was the taste of the ancients in their 
gardens, as we may discover from the descrip- 
tions extant of them. The two most celebrated 
wits of the world have each of them left us a 
particular picture of a garden ; wherein those 
great masters, being wholly unconfined, and 
painting at pleasure, may be thought to have 
given a full idea of what they esteemed most 
excellent in this way. These (one may observe) 
consist entirely of the useful part of horticul- 



Zhe (Buarfcian 157 



ture : fruit-trees, herbs, water, etc. The pieces 
I am speaking of are Virgil's account of the 
garden of the old Corycian and Homer's of that 
of Alcinous. The first of these is already 
known to the English reader by the excellent 
versions of Mr. Dryden and Mr. Addison. The 
other having never been attempted in our 
language with any elegance, and being the 
most beautiful plan of this sort that can be 
imagined, I shall here present the reader with a 
translation of it. 

THF GARDEN OF ALCINOUS. 
FROM HOMER'S ODYSSEY, VII. 

" Close to the gates a spacious garden lies, 
From storms defended and inclement skies : 
Four acres was the allotted space of ground, 
Fenc'd with a green enclosure all around. 
Tall thriving trees confess the fruitful mould ; 
The red'ning apple ripens here to gold ; 
Here the blue fig with luscious juice overflows, 
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows ; 
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, 
And verdant olives flourish round the year. 
The balmy spirit of the western gale 
Fternal breathes on fruits untaught to fail : 
Fach dropping pear a following pear supplies, 
On apples apples, figs on figs arise ; 
The same mild season gives the blooms to blow, 
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow. 

" Here order 'd vines in equal ranks appear, 
With all the united labors of the year. 



158 Zbe (Barren 



Some to unload the fertile branches run, 
Some dry the black'ning clusters in the sun. 
Others to tread the liquid harvest join, 
The groaning presses foam'd with floods of wine. 
Here are the vines in early flow'r descried, 
Here grapes discolor'd on the sunny side, 
And there in autumn's richest purple dy'd. 

" Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, 
In beauteous order terminate the scene. 

" Two plenteous fountains the wholeprospectcrown'd, 
This through the garden leads its streams around, 
Visits each plant, and waters all the ground. 
While that in pipes beneath the palace flows ; 
And thence its current on the town bestows ; 
To various use their various streams they bring, 
The people one, and one supplies the king." 

Sir William Temple has remarked, that this 
description contains all the justest rules and 
provisions which can go toward composing the 
best gardens. Its extent was four acres, which 
in those times of simplicity was looked upon as 
a large one, even for a prince ; it was enclosed all 
around for defence ; and for conveniency joined 
close to the gates of the palace. 

He mentions next the trees, which were stand- 
ards, and suffered to grow to their full height. 
The fine description of the fruits that never 
failed, and the eternal zephyrs, is only a more 
noble and poetical way of expressing the con- 
tinual succession of one fruit after another 
throughout the year. 



tTbe <5uar&ian 159 



The vineyard seems to have been a plantation 
distinct from the garden ; as also the beds of 
greens mentioned afterwards at the extremity 
of the enclosure, in the nature and usual place 
of our kitchen-gardens. 

The two fountains are disposed very remarka- 
bly. They rose within the enclosure, and were 
brought by conduits, or ducts, one of them to 
water all parts of the gardens, and the other 
underneath the palace into the town for the 
service of the public. 

How contrary to this simplicity is the modern 
practice of gardening ! We seem to make it 
our study to recede from nature, not only in the 
various tonsure of greens into the most regular 
and formal shapes, but even in monstrous at- 
tempts beyond the reach of the art itself. We 
run into sculpture, and yet are better pleased 
to have our trees in the most awkward figures 
of men and animals than in the most regular 
of their own. 

Hinc et nexilibus vineas e frondibus hortos, 
Implexos late muros, et mcenia circum 
Porrigere, et latas e rami's surgere turres ; 
Deflexam et myrtum in puppes, atque cerea rosta : 
In buxisque undare /return , atque e rore rudentes. 
Parte alia, frondere suis tentoria castris ; 
Scutaque spiculaque etjaculantia citria vallos. 

" Here interwoven branches form a wall, 
And from the living fence green turrets rise ; 



i6o XLbc Gar&en 



There ships of myrtle sail in seas of box ; 
A green encampment yonder meets the eye, 
And loaded citrons bearing shields and spears." 

I believe it is no wrong observation that per- 
sons of genius, and those who are most capable 
of art, are always most fond of nature : as such 
are chiefly sensible that all art consists in the 
imitation and study of nature. On the con- 
trary, people of the common level of under- 
standing are principally delighted with little 
niceties and fantastical operations of art, and 
constantly think that finest which is least 
natural. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a 
couple of yews than he entertains thoughts of 
erecting them into giants, like those of Guild- 
hall. I know an eminent cook who beautified 
his country-seat with a coronation dinner in 
greens ; where you see the champion flourishing 
on horseback at one end of the table, and the 
queen in perpetual youth at the other. . 

For the benefit of all my loving countrymen 
of this taste, I shall here publish a catalogue of 
greens to be disposed of by an eminent town 
gardener, who has lately applied to me upon 
this head. He represents that, for the advance- 
ment of a politer sort of ornament in the villas 
and gardens adjacent to this great city, and in 
order to distinguish those places from the mere 
barbarous countries of gross nature, the world 



Zhc ©uarfctan 161 

stands much in need of a virtuoso gardener 
who has a turn to sculpture, and is thereby 
capable of improving upon the ancients of his 
profession in the imagery of evergreens. My 
correspondent is arrived to such perfection, that 
he cuts family pieces of men, women, or chil- 
dren. Any ladies that please may have their 
own effigies in myrtle, or their husbands in 
hornbeam. He is a Puritan wag, and never 
fails when he shows his garden to repeat that 
passage in the Psalms : " Thy wife shall be as 
the fruitful vine, and thy children as olive 
branches round thy table." I shall proceed to 
his catalogue, as he sent it for my recommen- 
dation : 

" Adam and Eve in yew ; Adam a little shat- 
tered by the fall of the tree of knowledge in 
the great storm ; Eve and the serpent very 
nourishing. 

" The tower of Babel, not yet finished. 

"St. George in box; his arms scarce long 
enough, but will be in condition to stick the 
dragon by next April. 

" A green dragon of the same, with a tail of 
ground-ivy for the present. 

" N. B. These two not to be sold separately. 

" Edward the Black Prince in cypress. 

" A laurustine bear in blossom, with a juniper 
hunter in berries. 



162 XLbe (Barfcen 



" A pair of giants, stunted, to be sold cheap. 

"A queen Elizabeth in phylyrsea, a little in- 
clining to the green-sickness, but full of growth. 

" Another queen Elizabeth in myrtle, which 
was very forward, but miscarried by being too 
near a savine. 

" An old maid of honor in wormwood. 

" A topping Ben Jonson in laurel. 

" Divers eminent modern poets in bays, some- 
what blighted, to be disposed of, a pennyworth. 

"A quickset hog, shot up into a porcupine, 
by its being forgot a week in rainy weather. 

"A lavender pig with sage growing in his 
belly. 

11 Noah's ark in holly, standing on the mount ; 
the ribs a little damaged for want of water." 





LADY MARY WORTIyEY MONTAGUE. 

TO THE COUNTESS OF BUTE.* 

July 10, 1748. 

DEAR Chixd : — I received yours of May the 
12th but yesterday, July the 9th. I am 
surprised you complain of my silence. I have 
never failed answering yours the post after I 
received them ; but I fear, being directed to 
Twickenham (having no other direction from 
you), your servants there may have neglected 
them. 

I have been these six weeks, and still am, at 
my dairy-house, which joins to my garden. I 
believe I have already told you it is a long mile 
from the Castle, which is situate in the midst 
of a very large village, once a considerable 
town, part of the walls still remaining, and has 
not vacant ground enough about it to make a 

* Written from Lovere, near Brescia. The "Castle" 
referred to in this letter was the chateau rented and 
occupied by L,ady Mary. 



1 64 Zhe (Barren 



garden, which is my greatest amusement, it 
being now troublesome to walk, or even go in 
the chaise till the evening. I have fitted up in 
this farmhouse a room for myself — that is to 
say, strewed the floor with rushes, covered the 
chimney with moss and branches, and adorned 
the room with basins of earthenware (which is 
made here to great perfection) filled with 
flowers, and put in some straw chairs, and a 
couch bed, which is my whole furniture. This 
spot of ground is so beautiful, I am afraid you 
will scarce credit the description, which, how- 
ever, I can assure you, shall be very literal, 
without any embellishment from imagination. 
It is on a bank, forming a kind of peninsula, 
raised from the river Oglio fifty feet, to which 
you may descend by easy stairs cut in the turf, 
and either take the air on the river, which is as 
large as the Thames at Richmond, or by walk- 
ing in an avenue two hundred yards on the 
side of it, you find a wood of a hundred 
acres, which was all ready cut into walks and 
ridings when I took it. I have only added 
fifteen bowers in different views, with seats of 
turf. They were easily made, here being a 
large quantity of underwood, and a great num- 
ber of wild vines, which twist to the top of the 
highest trees, and from which they make a very 
good sort of wine they call brusco. I am now 



%afc£ /ifoars Mottle^ /Ifcontague 165 

writing to you in one of these arbors, which is 
so thickly shaded, the sun is not troublesome, 
even at noon. Another is on the side of the 
river, where I have made a camp kitchen, that 
I may take the fish, dress, and eat it im- 
mediately, and at the same time see the barks, 
which ascend or descend every day to or from 
Mantua, Gaustalla, or Pont de Vie, all con- 
siderable towns. This little wood is carpeted, 
in their succeeding seasons, with violets and 
strawberries, inhabited by a nation of night- 
ingales, and filled with game of all kinds, 
excepting deer and wild boar, the first being 
unknown here, and not being large enough for 
the other. 

My garden was a plain vineyard when it came 
into my hands not two years ago, and it is, 
with a small expense, turned into a garden that 
(apart from the advantage of the climate) I like 
better than that of Kensington. The Italian vine- 
yards are not planted like those of France, but 
in clumps, fastened to trees planted in equal 
ranks (commonly fruit-trees), and continued in 
festoons from one to another, which I have 
turned into covered galleries of shade, that I 
can walk in the heat without being incom- 
moded by it. I have made a dining-room of 
verdure, capable of holding a table of twenty 
covers ; the whole ground is three hundred and 



166 XLhc (Barren 



seventeen feet in length, and two hundred in 
breadth. You see it is far from large ; but so 
prettily disposed (though I say it), that I never 
saw a more agreeable rustic garden, abounding 
with all sort of fruit, and produces a variety 
of wines. , I would send you a piece if I did 
not fear the customs would make you pay too 
dear for it. I believe my description gives you 
but an imperfect idea of my garden. Perhaps I 
shall succeed better in describing my manner 
of life, which is as regular as that of any mon- 
astery. I generally rise at six, and as soon as I 
have breakfasted, put myself at the head of 
my weeder women and work with them till 
nine. /I then inspect my dairy, and take a turn 
among my poultry, which is a very large in- 
quiry. I have, at present, two hundred chick- 
ens, besides turkeys, geese, ducks, and peacocks. 
All things have hitherto prospered under my 
care ; my bees and silkworms are doubled, and 
I am told that, without accidents, my capital 
will be so in two years' time. At eleven o'clock 
I retire to my books ; I dare not indulge myself 
in that pleasure above an hour. At twelve I 
constantly dine, and sleep after dinner till about 
three. I then send for some of my old priests, 
and either play at piquet or whist, till 'tis cool 
enough to go out. One evening I walk in my 
wood, where I often sup, take the air on horse- 



Xafc£ tf&arE Mortice ^Iftontague 167 

back the next, and go on the water the third. 
The fishery of this part of the river belongs to 
me ; and my fisherman's little boat (where I 
have a green lutestring awning) serves me for a 
barge. He and his son are my rowers without 
any expense, he being very well paid by the 
profit of the fish, which I give him, on condi- 
tion of having every day one dish for my table. 
Here is plenty of every sort of fresh-water fish 
(excepting salmon) ; but we have a large trout 
so like it, that I, that have almost forgot the 
taste, do not distinguish it. 

We are both placed properly in regard to our 
different times of life ; you amidst the fair, the 
gallant, and the gay ; I in a retreat, where I 
enjoy every amusement that solitude can afford. 
I confess I sometimes wish for a little conversa- 
tion ; but I reflect that the commerce of the 
world gives more uneasiness than pleasure, 
and quiet is all the hope that can reasonably 
be indulged at my age. My letter is of an un- 
conscionable length ; I should ask j^our pardon 
for it, but I had a mind to give you an idea of 
my passing my time, — take it as an instL_ice of 
the affection of, dear child, 

Your most affectionate mother. 

My compliments to Lord Bute, and blessing 
to all my grandchildren. 



168 Gbe (3arDen 



TO THE COUNTESS OF BUTE. 

Dairy-house, July 26, N.S., 1748. 
I am really as fond of my garden as a young 
author of his first play, when it has been well 
received by the town, and can no more forbear 
teasing my acquaintance for their approbation : 
though I gave you a long account of it in my 
last, I must tell you I have made two little ter- 
races, raised twelve steps each, at the end of my 
great walk ; they are just finished, and a great 
addition to the beauty of my gardem I enclose 
to you a rough draft of it, drawn (or more prop- 
erly scrawled) by my own hand, without the 
assistance of rule or compasses, as you will 
easily perceive. I have mixed in my espaliers 
as many rose and jessamine trees as I can cram 
in ; and in the squares designed for the use of 
the kitchen, have avoided putting any thing dis- 
agreeable either to sight or smell, having another 
garden below for cabbage, onions, garlic, etc. 
All the walks are garnished with beds of flow- 
ers, beside the parterres, which are for a more 
distinguished sort. I have neither brick nor 
stone walls : all my fence is a high hedge, 
mingled with trees ; but fruit is so plenty in 
this country, nobody thinks it worth stealing. 
Gardening is certainly the next amusement to 
reading ; and as my sight will now permit me 
IHtle of that, I am glad to form a taste that can 



£a£>£ /llban? Wortlei? Montague 169 

give me so much employment, and be the play- 
thing of my age, now my pen and needle are 
almost useless to me. ') . . 

Now the sea is open, we may send packets to 
one another. I wish you would send me Camp- 
bell's book of prints of the English houses, and 
that Lord Bute would be so good as to choose 
me the best book of practical gardening extant. 

TO THE COUNTESS OF BUTE. 

Salo, October 17, 1750. 

Dear ChiIvD: — I received yours of August 
25th this morning, October 17th, N.S. It was 
every way welcome to me, particularly finding 
you and your family in good health. You will 
think me a great rambler, being at present far 
distant from the date of my last letter. I have 
been persuaded to go to a palace near Salo, 
situate on the vast lake of Gardia, and do not 
repent my pains since my arrival, though I have 
passed a very bad road to it. It is indeed, take 
it altogether, the finest place I ever saw : the 
king of France has nothing so fine, nor can 
have in his situation. It is large enough to 
entertain all his court, and much larger than 
the royal palace of Naples, or any of those of 
Germany or England. It was built by the great 
Cosmo, Duke of Florence, where he passed 



i7o Zbc (BarDen 



many months, for several years, on the account 
of his health, the air being esteemed one of the 
best in Italy. All the offices and conveniences 
are suitably magnificent, but that is nothing in 
regard to the beauties without doors. It is 
seated in that part of the lake which forms an 
amphitheatre, at the foot of a mountain near 
three miles high, covered with a wood of orange, 
lemon, citron, and pomegranate trees, which is 
all cut into walks, and divided into terraces, 
that you may go into a several garden from 
every floor in the house, diversified with foun- 
tains, cascades, and statues, and joined by 
easy marble staircases, which lead from one to 
another. There are many covered walks, where 
you are secure from the sun in the hottest part 
of the day, by the shade of the orange trees, 
which are so loaded with fruit you can hardly 
have any notion of their beauty without seeing 
them : they are as large as lime trees in Eng- 
land. You will think I say a great deal : I will 
assure you I say far short of what I see, and 
you must turn to the fairy tales to give any idea 
of the real charms of this enchanting palace, 
for so it may justly be called. The variety of 
the prospects, the natural beauties, and the im- 
provements by art, where no cost has been 
spared to perfect it, render it the most complete 
habitation I know in Europe. While the poor 
present master of it (to whose ancestor the 



XaDE .flfcarE Wortle^ dfcontague 171 



Grand Duke presented it, having built it on his 
land), having spent a noble estate by gaming 
and other extravagance, would be glad to let it 
for a trifle, and is not rich enough to live in it. 
Most of the fine furniture is sold ; there remains 
only a few of the many good pictures that 
adorned it, and such goods as were not easily to 
be transported, or for which he found no chap- 
man. I have said nothing to you of the mag- 
nificent bath, embellished with statues, or the 
fish-ponds, the chief of which is in the midst of 
the garden to which I go from my apartment 
on the first floor. It is circled by a marble 
baluster, and supplied by water from a cascade 
that proceeds from the mouth of a whale, on 
which Neptune is mounted, surrounded with 
reeds : on each side of him are Tritons, which, 
from their shells, pour out streams that aug- 
ment the pond. Higher on the hill are three 
colossal statues of Venus, Hercules, and Apollo. 
The water is so clear you see the numerous fish 
that inhabit it, and it is a great pleasure to me 
to throw them bread, which they come to the 
surface to eat with great greediness. I pass by 
many other fountains, not to make my descrip- 
tion too tedious. You will wonder, perhaps, 
never to have heard any mention of this para- 
dise either from our English travellers or in any 
of the printed accounts of Italy ; it is as much 
unknown to them as if it was guarded by a 



172 Gbe <3arDen 



flaming cherubim. I attribute that ignorance, 
in part, to its being twenty-five miles distant 
from any post town, and also to the custom of 
the English of herding together, avoiding the 
conversation of the Italians, who, on their side, 
are naturally reserved, and do not seek strangers. 
Lady Orford could give you some knowledge 
of it, having passed the last six months she 
stayed here in a house she hired at Salo ; but 
as all her time was then taken up with the 
melancholy vapors her distresses had thrown 
her into, I question whether her curiosity ever 
engaged her to see this palace, though but half 
a mile from it. 

October 25th. 
I was interrupted in this part of my letter by 
a visit from Count Martinenghi, master of this 
house, with his son and two daughters ; they 
stayed till this morning, being determined to 
show me all the fine places on this side the lake, 
to engage me to grow fond of staying here, and 
I have had a very pleasant progress in viewing 
the most remarkable palaces within ten miles 
round. Three from hence is the little town of 
Maderna, where the last Duke of Mantua built 
a retreat worthy a sovereign. It is now in the 
hands of a rich merchant, who maintains it in 
all its beauty. It is not half so large as that 



%abx> Mars Wortleg jflRontague 173 



where I am, but perfectly proportioned and 
uniform, from a design of Palladio's. The gar- 
den is in the style of Le Notre, and the furni- 
ture in the best taste of Paris. I am almost 
ready to confess it deserves the preference to 
this, though built at far less expense. The 
situations are as different as is possible, when 
both of them are between a mountain and the 
lake : that under which the Duke of Mantua 
chose to build is much lower than this, and 
almost sterile ; the prospect of it is rather 
melancholy than agreeable ; but the palace, 
being placed at the foot of it, is a mile distant 
from the lake, which forms a sort of peninsula, 
half a mile broad, and 't is on that is the de- 
lightful garden, adorned with parterres, espa- 
liers, all sorts of exotic plants, and ends in a 
thick wood, cut into ridings. That in the midst 
is large enough for a coach, and terminates at 
the lake, which appears from the windows like 
a great canal made on purpose to beautify the 
prospect. On the contrary, the palace where I 
lodge is so near the water that you step out of 
the gate into the barge, and the gardens being 
all divided, you cannot view from the house 
above one of them at a time. In short, these 
two palaces may in their different beauties rival 
each other, while they are neither of them to 
be excelled in any other part of the world. 



i74 ftbe (Sarfcen 



I have wrote you a terrible long letter ; but 
as you say you are often alone, it may serve 
you for half an hour's amusement ; at least 
receive it as a proof that there is none more 
agreeable to me than giving assurances of my 
being, dear child, your most affectionate mother. 

My compliments to I/Ord Bute, and blessing 
to my grandchildren. 

P. S. — Yours of the 23d September is just this 
minute brought to me. I heartily wish you and 
my Lord Bute joy of his place ; and wish it may 
have more advantageous consequences ; but am 
glad you do not too much found hopes on 
things of so much uncertainty. I have read S. 
Fielding's works, and should be glad to hear 
what is become of her. All the other books 
would be new to me excepting "Pamela," which 
has met with very extraordinary (and I think 
undeserved) success. It has been translated into 
French and into Italian ; it was all the fashion 
at Paris and Versailles, and is still the joy of the 
chamber-maids of all nations. 

Direct the books to the care of Sir James 
Gray, the English minister at Venice. 





^iti^ 



THOMAS WHATELY. 



OBSERVATIONS ON MODERN GARDENING. 



GARDENING, in the perfection to which it 
has been lately brought in England, is 
entitled to a place of considerable rank among 
the liberal arts. It is as superior to landscape 
painting, as a reality to a representation. It is 
an exertion of fancy ; a subject of taste ; and 
being released now from the restraints of regu- 
larity, and enlarged beyond the purposes of 
domestic convenience, the most beautiful, the 
most simple, the most noble scenes of nature 
are all within its province : for it is no longer 
confined to the spots from which it borrows its 
name, but regulates also the disposition and 
embellishments of a park, a farm, or a riding ; 
and the business of a gardener is to select and 
to apply whatever is great, elegant, or character- 



176 XLbc (Barfcen 



istic in any of them ; to discover and to show all 
the advantages of the place upon which he is 
employed ; to supply its defects, to correct its 
faults, and to improve its beauties. 

For all these operations, the objects of nature 
are still his only materials. His first inquiry, 
therefore, must be into the means by which 
those effects are attained in nature, which he 
is to produce ; and into those properties in the 
objects of nature, which should determine him 
in the choice and arrangement of them. 

Nature, always simple, employs but four ma- 
terials in the composition of her scenes, ground, 
wood, water, and rocks. The cultivation of na- 
ture has introduced a fifth species, the buildings 
requisite for the accommodation of men. Each 
of these again admits of varieties in figure, di- 
mensions, color, and situation. Every landscape 
is composed of these parts only ; every beauty 
in a landscape depends on the application of 
their several varieties. 

OF GROUND. 

The prevailing character of a wood is gener- 
ally grandeur ; the principal attention therefore 
which it requires, is to prevent the excesses of 
that character, to diversify the uniformity of its 
extent, to lighten the unwieldiness of its bulk, 
and to blend graces with greatness. But the 



Gbomas llfflbatelg 177 



character of a grove is beauty ; fine trees are 
lovely objects ; a grove is an assemblage of 
them, in which every individual retains much 
of its own peculiar elegance ; and whatever it 
loses, is transferred to the superior beauty of 
the whole. To a grove, therefore, which ad- 
mits of endless variety in the disposition of the 
trees, differences in their shapes and their 
greens are seldom very important, and some- 
times they are detrimental. Strong contrasts 
scatter trees which are thinly planted, and 
which have not the connection of underwood ; 
they no longer form one plantation ; they are a 
number of single trees. A thick grove is not 
indeed exposed to this mischief, and certain situ- 
ations may recommend different shapes and dif- 
ferent greens for their effects upon the surface ; 
but in the outline they are seldom much re- 
garded. The eye, attracted into the depth of 
the grove, passes by little circumstances at the 
entrance ; even varieties in the form of the 
line do not always engage the attention : they 
are not so apparent as in a continued thicket, 
and are scarcely seen, if they are not consider- 
able. 

But the surface and the outline are not the 
only circumstances to be attended to. Though 
a grove be beautiful as an object, it is besides 
delightful as a spot to walk or to sit in ; and the 



178 Gbe (3ar0en 



choice and the disposition of the trees for effects 
within are therefore a principal consideration. 
Mere irregularity alone will not please ; strict 
order is there more agreeable than absolute 
confusion ; and some meaning better there than 
none. A regular plantation has a degree of 
beauty ; but it gives no satisfaction, because we 
know that the same number of trees might be 
more beautifully arranged. A disposition, how- 
ever, in which the lines only are broken, with- 
out varying the distances, is less natural than 
any ; for though we cannot find straight lines 
in a forest, we are habituated to them in the 
hedgerows of fields ; but neither in wild nor in 
cultivated nature do we ever see trees equi-dis- 
tant from each other : that regularity belongs 
to art alone. The distances therefore should be 
strikingly different ; the trees should gather into 
groups, or stand in various irregular lines, and 
describe several figures ; the intervals between 
them should be contrasted both in shape and in 
dimensions ; a large space should in some places 
be quite open ; in others the trees should be so 
close together as hardly to leave a passage be- 
tween them ; and in others as far apart as the 
connection will allow. In the forms and the 
varieties of these groups, these lines, and these 
openings, principally consists the interior beauty 
of a grove. 



Gbomas WbatelE 179 

CIvARKMONT. 

The force of them is most strongly illustrated 
at Claremont*; where the walk to the cottage, 
though destitute of many natural advantages, 
and eminent for none ; though it commands no 
prospect ; though the water below it is a trifling 
pond ; though it has nothing, in short, but in- 
equality of ground to recommend it, is yet the 
finest part of the garden. For a grove is there 
planted, in a gently curved direction, all along 
the side of a hill, and on the edge of a wood, 
which rises above it. Large recesses break it 
into several clumps, which hang down the de- 
clivity ; some of them approaching, but none 
reaching quite to, the bottom. These recesses 
are so deep as to form great openings in the 
midst of the grove ; they penetrate almost to 
the covert ; but the clumps being all equally 
suspended from the wood, and a line of open 
plantation, though sometimes narrow, running 
constantly along the top, a continuation of grove 
is preserved, and the connection between the 
parts is never broken. Even a group, which near 
one of the extremities stands out quite detached, 
is still in style so familiar to the rest as not to lose 
all relation. Each of these clumps is composed 
of several others still more intimately united : 
each is full of groups, sometimes of no more 
* Near Esher in Surrey. 



i8o Gbe (Barren 



than two trees, sometimes of four or five, and 
now and then in larger clusters ; an irregular 
waving line, issuing from some little crowd, 
loses itself in the next ; or a few scattered trees 
drop in a more distant succession from the one 
to the other. The intervals, winding here like 
a glade, and widening there into broader open- 
ings, differ in extent, in figure, and direction ; 
but all the groups, the lines, and the intervals 
are collected together into large general clumps, 
each of which is at the same time both compact 
and free, identical and various. The whole is a 
place wherein to tarry with secure delight, or 
saunter with perpetual amusement. 

ESHER PI.ACE. 

The grove at Bsher Place was planted by the 
same masterly hand ; but the necessity of ac- 
commodating the young plantation to some 
large trees which grew there before, has con- 
fined its variety. The groups are few and 
small ; there was not room for larger or for 
more ; there were no opportunities to form 
continued narrow glades between opposite 
lines ; the vacant spaces are therefore chiefly 
irregular openings spreading every way, and 
great differences of distance between the trees 
are the principal variety ; but the grove winds 
along the bank of a large river, on the side and 



Gbomae TJQbateli? 181 

at the foot of a very sudden ascent, the upper 
part of which is covered with wood. In one 
place it presses close to the covert ; retires from 
it in another ; and stretches in a third across a 
bold recess, which runs up high into the 
thicket. The trees sometimes overspread the 
flat below : sometimes leave an open space to 
the river ; at other times crown the brow of a 
large knoll, climb up a steep, or hang on a 
gentle declivity. These varieties in the situa- 
tion more than compensate for the want of 
variety in the disposition of the trees ; and the 
many happy circumstances which concur 

" In Esher's peaceful grove, 

Where Kent and nature vie for Pelhani's love," 

render this little spot more agreeable than any 
at Claremont. But though it was right to pre- 
serve the trees already standing, and not to 
sacrifice great present beauties to still greater 
in futurity, yet this attention has been a re- 
straint, and the grove at Claremont, considered 
merely as a plantation, is in delicacy of taste, 
and fertility of invention, superior to that at 
Bsher. 

Both were early essays in the modern art of 
gardening : and, perhaps from the eagerness to 
show the effect, the trees in both were placed 
too near together : though they are still far 



182 XLbe (Sarfcen 



short of their growth, they are run up into 
poles, and the groves are already past their 
prime ; but the temptation to plant for such 
a purpose no longer exists, now that experience 
has justified the experiment. If, however, we 
still have not patience to wait, it is possible to 
secure both a present and a future effect, by 
fixing first on a disposition which will be beau- 
tiful when the trees are large, and then inter- 
mingling another which is agreeable while they 
are small. These occasional trees are hereafter 
to be taken away ; and must be removed in 
time, before they become prejudicial to the 
others. 

The consequence of variety in the disposition 
is variety in the light and shade of the grove ; 
which may be improved by the choice of the 
trees. Some are impenetrable to the fiercest 
sunbeam ; others let in here and there a ray be- 
tween the large masses of their foliage ; and 
others, thin both of boughs and of leaves, only 
checker the ground. Every degree of light and 
shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be man- 
aged, partly by the number, and partly by the 
texture of the trees. Differences only in the 
manner of their growths have, also, correspond- 
ing effects ; there is a closeness under those 
whose branches descend low, and spread wide ; 
a space and liberty where the arch above is 



ftbomas Wbatelg 183 

high ; and frequent transitions from the one to 
the other are very pleasing. These still are not 
all the varieties of which the interior of a grove 
is capable. Trees indeed, whose branches nearly 
reach the ground, being each a sort of thicket, 
are inconsistent with an open plantation. But 
though some of the characteristic distinctions 
are thereby excluded, other varieties more 
minute succeed in their place ; for the freedom 
of passage throughout brings every tree in its 
turn near to the eye, and subjects even differ- 
ences in foliage to observation. These, slight 
as they may seem, are agreeable when they 
occur : it is true they are not regretted when 
wanting ; but a defect of ornament is not neces- 
sarily a blemish. 

BLENHEIM. 

A river requires a number of accompaniments ; 
the changes in its course furnish a variety of 
situations ; while the fertility, convenience, and 
amenity which attend it, account for all appear- 
ances of inhabitants and improvement. Profu- 
sion of ornament on a fictitious river, is a just 
imitation of cultivated nature ; every species of 
building, every style of plantation, may abound 
on the banks ; and whatever be their characters, 
their proximity to the water is commonly the 



1 84 XLhc <3arDen 



happiest circumstance in their situation. A 
lustre is from thence diffused on all around ; 
each derives an importance from its relation to 
this capital feature ; those which are near 
enough to be reflected, immediately belong to 
it ; those at a greater distance, still share in the 
animation of the scene ; and objects totally de- 
tached from each other, being all attracted 
towards the same interesting connection, are 
united into one composition. 

In the front of Blenheim was a deep broad 
valley, which abruptly separated the castle 
from the lawn and the plantations before it: 
even a direct approach could not be made, 
without building a monstrous bridge over this 
vast hollow : but the forced communication was 
only a subject of raillery, and the scene con- 
tinued broken into two parts, absolutely distinct 
from each other. This valley has been lately 
flooded ; it is not filled ; the bottom only is 
covered with water ; the sides are still very high, 
but they are no longer the steeps of a chasm ; 
they are the bold shores of a noble river. The 
same bridge is standing without alteration ; but 
no extravagance remains ; the water gives it 
propriety. Above it, the river first appears, 
winding from behind a small thick wood in the 
valley ; and soon taking a determined course, it 
is then broad enough to admit an island filled 



Gbomas "MbatelE 185 

with the finest trees ; others, corresponding to 
them in growth and disposition, stand in 
groups on the banks, intermixed with younger 
plantations. Immediately below the bridge, 
the river spreads into a large expanse ; the 
sides are open lawn ; on that farthest from the 
house formerly stood the palace of Henry the 
Second, celebrated in many an ancient ditty by 
the name of fair Rosamond's Bower ; a little 
clear spring which rises there is by the country 
people still called fair Rosamond's Well : the 
spot is now marked by a single willow. Near it 
is a fine collateral stream, of a beautiful form, 
retaining its breadth as far as it is seen, and 
retiring at last behind a hill from the view. 
The main river, having received this accession, 
makes a gentle bend, then continues for a con- 
siderable length in one wide direct reach, and, 
just as it disappears, throws itself down a high 
cascade, which is the present termination. On 
one of the banks of this reach is the garden ; the 
steeps are there diversified with thickets and 
with glades ; but the covert prevails, and the 
top is crowned with lofty trees. On the other 
side is a noble hanging wood in the park ; it was 
depreciated when it sunk into a hollow, and 
was poorly lost in the bottom ; but it is now 
a rich appendage to the river, falling down an 
easy slope quite to the water's edge, where, 



186 £be (Sarfcen 



without overshadowing, it is reflected on the 
surface. Another face of the same wood bor- 
ders the collateral stream, with an outline more 
indented and various ; while a very large irregu- 
lar clump adorns the opposite declivity. This 
clump is at a considerable distance from the 
principal river ; but the stream it belongs to 
brings it down to connect with the rest ; and 
the other objects, which were before dispersed, 
are now, by the interest of each in a relation 
which is common to all, collected into one 
illustrious scene. The castle is itself a prodi- 
gious pile of building, which, with all the 
faults in its architecture, will never seem less 
than a truly princely habitation ; and the con- 
fined spot where it was placed, on the edge of 
an abyss, is converted into a proud situation, 
commanding a beautiful prospect of water, and 
open to an extensive lawn, adequate to the 
mansion, and an emblem of its domain. In the 
midst of this lawn stands a column, a stately 
trophy, recording the exploits of the Duke of 
Marlborough, and the gratitude of Britain. Be- 
tween this pillar and the castle is the bridge, 
which now, applied to a subject worthy of it, is 
established in all the importance due to its 
greatness. The middle arch is wider than the 
Rialto, but not too wide for the occasion ; and 



ftbomas MbatelB 187 

yet this is the narrowest part of the river : but 
the length of the reaches is everywhere pro- 
portioned to their breadth ; each of them is 
alone a noble piece of water ; and the last, the 
finest of all, loses itself gradually in a wood, 
which on that side is also the boundary of the 
lawn, and rises into the horizon. All is great in 
the front of Blenheim ; but in that vast space no 
void appears, so important are the parts, so 
magnificent the objects. The plain is extensive ; 
the valley is broad ; the wood is deep ; though 
the intervals between the buildings are large, 
they are filled with the grandeur which build- 
ings of such dimensions, and so much pomp, 
diffuse all around them ; and the river in its 
long varied course, approaching to every object, 
and touching upon every part, spreads its influ- 
ence over the whole. Notwithstanding their 
distances from each other, they all seem to be 
assembled about the water, which is everywhere 
a fine expanse, whose extremities are undeter- 
mined. In size, in form, and in style, it is equal 
to the majesty of the scene ; and is designed in 
the spirit, is executed with the liberality, of the 
original donation, when this residence of a 
mighty monarch was bestowed by a great peo- 
ple as a munificent reward on the hero who had 
deserved best of his country. 



Zhc <3arDen 



WOTTON AND THE VALE OF AYLESBURY. 

In the composition of this scene, the river, 
both as a part itself and as uniting the other 
parts, has a principal share ; but water is not 
lost, though it be in so confined or so concealed 
a spot as to enter into no view ; it may render 
that spot delightful ; it is capable of the most 
exquisite beauty in its form ; and, though not 
in space, may yet in disposition have preten- 
sions to greatness ; for it may be divided into 
several branches, which will form a cluster of 
islands all connected together, make the whole 
place irriguous, and, in the stead of extent, 
supply a quantity of water. Such a sequestered 
scene usually owes its retirement to the trees 
and the thickets with which it abounds ; but 
in the disposition of them, one distinction 
should be constantly attended to ; a river flow- 
ing through a wood, which overspreads one 
continued surface of ground, and a river be- 
tween two woods, are in very different circum- 
stances. In the latter case, the woods are 
separate ; they may be contracted in their 
forms and their characters, and the outline of 
each should be forcibly marked. In the former, 
no outline ought to be discernible, for the river 
passes between trees, not between boundaries ; 
and though in the progress of its course the 
style of the plantations may be often changed, 



ftbomas TKflbatelg 189 



yet on the opposite banks a similarity should 
constantly prevail, that the identity of the wood 
may never be doubtful. 

A river between two woods may enter into a 
view, and then it must be governed by the 
principles which regulate the conduct and the 
accompaniments of a river in an open exposure ; 
but when it runs through a wood, it is never to 
be seen in prospect. The place is naturally 
full of obstructions, and a continued opening 
large enough to receive a long reach would 
seem an artificial cut. The river must there- 
fore necessarily wind more than in crossing a 
lawn, where the passage is entirely free, but 
its influence will never extend so far on the 
sides. The buildings must be near the banks, 
and, if numerous, will seem crowded, being all 
in one track and in situations nearly alike. 
The scene, however, does not want variety ; on 
the contrary, none is capable of more. The 
objects are not, indeed, so different from each 
other as in an open view, but they are very dif- 
ferent and in much greater abundance, for this 
is the interior of a wood, where every tree is an 
object, every combination of trees a variety, 
and no large intervals are requisite to distin- 
guish the several dispositions. The grove, the 
thicket, or the groups may prevail, and their 
forms and their relations may be constantly 



i go ftbe <3arden 



changed without restraint of fancy or limita- 
tion of number. 

Water is so universally and so deservedly ad- 
mired in a prospect that the most obvious 
thought in the management of it is to lay it as 
open as possible, and purposely to conceal it 
would generally seem a severe self-denial. Yet 
so many beauties may attend its passage through 
a wood, that larger portions of it might be 
allowed to such retired scenes than are com- 
monly spared from the view, and the different 
parts in different styles would then be fine con- 
trasts to each other. If the water at Wotton* 
were all exposed, a walk of near two miles 
along the banks would be of a tedious length, 
from the want of those changes of the scene 
which now supply through the whole extent a 
succession of perpetual variety. That extent is 
so large as to admit of a division into four prin- 
cipal parts, all of them great in style and in 
dimensions, and differing from each other both 
in character and situation. The two first are 
the best. The one is a reach of a river about 
the third of a mile in length and of a competent 
breadth, flowing through a lovely mead, open 
in some places to views of beautiful hills in 
the country, and adorned in others with clumps 

* The seat of Mr. Grenville, in the vale of Aylesbury, 
in Buckinghamshire. 



Gbomas Wbatelg J 9i 

of trees, so large that their branches stretch 
quite across and form a high arch over the 
water. The next seems to have been once a 
formal basin encompassed with plantations, 
and the appendages on either side still retain 
some traces of regularity ; but the shape of the 
basin is free from them. The size is about 
fourteen acres, and out of it issue two broad, 
collateral streams winding towards a large 
river, which they are seen to approach and sup- 
posed to join. A real junction is, however, im- 
possible, from the difference of the levels : but 
the terminations are so artfully concealed that 
the deception is never suspected, and, when 
known, is not easily explained. The river is 
the third great division of the water ; a lake 
into which it falls is the fourth. These two do 
actually join, but their characters are directly 
opposite. The scenes they belong to are totally 
distinct, and the transition from the one to the 
other is very gradual, for an island near the 
conflux, dividing the breadth and concealing 
the end of the lake, moderates for some way 
the space ; and, permitting it to expand but by 
degrees, raises an idea of greatness from un- 
certainty accompanied with increase. The real- 
ity does not disappoint the expectation, and 
the island, which is the point of view, is itself 
equal to the scene. It is large, and high above 



i92 tTbe Garden 



the lake ; the ground is irregularly broken ; 
thickets hang on the sides, and towards the top 
is placed an Ionic portico, which commands a 
noble extent of water not less than a mile in 
circumference, bounded on one side with wood 
and open on the other to two sloping lawns, 
the least of an hundred acres, diversified with 
clumps and bordered by plantations. Yet this 
lake, when full in view and with all the import- 
ance which space, form, and situation can give, is 
not more interesting than the sequestered river, 
which has been mentioned as the third great 
division of the water. It is just within the 
verge of a wood three quarters of a mile long, 
everywhere broad, and its course is such as to 
admit of infinite variety without any confusion. 
The banks are cleared of underwood, but a few 
thickets still remain, and on one side an 
impenetrable covert soon begins. The interval 
is a beautiful grove of oaks, scattered over a 
green sward of extraordinary verdure. Between 
these trees and these thickets the river seems 
to glide gently along, constantly winding, 
without one .short turn or one extended reach 
in the whole length of the way. This even 
temper in the stream suits the scenes through 
which it passes. They are, in general, of a 
very sober cast ; not melancholy, but grave : 
never exposed to a glare ; never darkened with 



Gbomas Mbatelg 193 

gloom, nor by strong contrasts of light and 
shade exhibiting the excess of either. Un- 
disturbed by an extent of prospects without, 
or a multiplicity of objects within, they re- 
tain at all times a mildness of charac- 
ter, which is still more forcibly felt when 
the shadows grow faint as they lengthen ; when 
a little rustling of birds in the spray, the leap- 
ing of the fish, and the fragrancy of the wood- 
bine denote the approach of evening ; while the 
setting sun shoots its last gleams on a Tuscan 
portico which is close to the great basin, but 
which, from a seat near this river, is seen at a 
distance through all the obscurity of the wood, 
glowing on the banks and reflected on the sur- 
face of the water. In another still more distin- 
guished spot is built an elegant bridge, with a 
colonnade upon it, which not only adorns the 
place where it stands, but is also a picturesque 
object to an octagon building near the lake, 
where it is shown in a singular situation, over- 
arched, encompassed, and backed with wood, 
without any appearance of the water beneath. 
This building, in return, is also an object from 
the bridge, and a Chinese room, in a little island 
just by, is another. Neither of them are con- 
siderable, and the others which are visible are 
at a distance. But more or greater adventitious 
ornaments are not required in a spot so rich as 

7 



i94 ftbe Oarfcen 



this in beauties peculiar to its character. A 
profusion of water pours in from all sides 
round upon the view ; the opening of the lake 
appears ; a glimpse is caught of the large basin ; 
one of the collateral streams is full in sight; 
and the bridge itself is in the midst of the 
finest part of the river. All seem to communi- 
cate the one with the other, though thickets 
often intercept, and groups perplex the view, 
yet they never break the connection between 
the several pieces of water ; each may still be 
traced along large branches, or little catches, 
which in some places are overshadowed and 
dim ; in ethers glisten through a glade, or 
glimmer between the boles of trees in a distant 
perspective ; and in one, where they are quite 
lost to the view, some arches of a stone bridge, 
but partially seen among the wood, preserve 
their connection. However interrupted, how- 
ever varied, they still appear to be parts of one 
whole, which has all the intricacy of number, 
and the greatness of unity ; the variety of a 
stream, and the quantity of a lake ; the solem- 
nity of a wood, and the animation of water. 



OF A GARDEN. 



The gravel paths have been mentioned as 
contributing to the appearance of a garden ; 
they are unusual elsewhere ; they constantly 



tTbomas Tlftbatelg 195 

present the idea of a walk ; and the correspond- 
ence between their sides, the exactness of the 
edges, the nicety of the materials and of the 
preservation, appropriate them to spots in the 
highest state of improvement. Applied to any 
other subject than a park, their effect is the 
same. A field surrounded by a gravel walk is to 
a degree bordered by a garden ; and many orna- 
ments may be introduced as appendages to the 
latter, which would otherwise appear to be 
inconsistent with the former. When these ac- 
companiments occupy a considerable space, and 
are separated from the field, the idea of a garden 
is complete as far as they extend ; but if the 
gravel be omitted, and the walk be only of turf, 
a greater breadth to the border and more rich- 
ness in the decorations are necessary to preserve 
that idea. 

Many gardens are nothing more than such a 
walk round a field ; that field is often raised to 
the character of a lawn, and sometimes the 
enclosure is, in fact, a paddock ; whatever it 
be, the walk is certainly garden ; it is a spot set 
apart for pleasure ; it admits on the sides a 
profusion of ornament ; it is fit for the recep- 
tion of every elegance, and requires the nicest 
preservation ; it is attended also with many 
advantages, may be made and kept without 
much expense, leads to a variety of points, and 



196 tTbe (Sarfcen 



avails itself in its progress of the several cir- 
cumstances which belong to the enclosure it 
surrounds, whether they be the rural appurte- 
nances of a farm, or those more refined which 
distinguish a paddock. 

But it has at the same time its inconveniences 
and defects : its approach to the several points 
is always circuitous, and they are thereby often 
thrown to a distance from the house and from 
each other ; there is no access to them across 
the open exposure ; the way must constantly be 
the same ; the view all along is into one open- 
ing, which must be peculiarly circumstanced to 
furnish within itself a sufficient variety, and the 
embellishments of the walk are seldom import- 
ant : their number is limited, and the little 
space allotted for their reception admits only 
of those which can be accommodated to the 
scale and will conform to the character. This 
species of garden, therefore, reduces almost to 
a sameness all the places it is applied to ; the 
subject seems exhausted ; no walk round a field 
can now be very different from several others 
already existing. At the best, too, it is but a 
walk ; the fine scenery of a garden is wanting, 
and that in the field, which is substituted in its 
stead, is generally of an inferior character, and 
often defective in connection with the spot 
which commands it, by the intervention of the 



Gbomas TKabatelg 197 

fence, or the visible difference in the preserva- 
tion. 

This objection, however, has more or less 
force, according to the character of the enclos- 
ure : if that be a paddock or a lawn it may- 
exhibit scenes not unworthy of the most elegant 
garden, which, agreeing in style, will unite in 
appearance with the garden. The other objec- 
tions also are stronger or weaker in proportion 
to the space allowed for the appendages, and 
not applicable at all to a broad circuit of gar- 
den, which has room within itself for scenery, 
variety, and character ; but the common narrow 
walk, too indiscriminately in fashion, if con- 
tinued to a considerable extent, becomes very 
tiresome, and the points it leads to must be 
more than ordinarily delightful to compensate 
for the fatigue of the way. 

This tediousness may, however, be remedied 
without any extravagant enlargement of the 
plan, by taking in at certain intervals an addi- 
tional breadth, sufficient only for a little scene 
to interrupt the uniformity of the progress. 
The walk is then a communication, not between 
points of view, through all which it remains 
unaltered, but between the several parts of a 
garden, in each of which it is occasionally lost, 
and, when resumed, it is at the worst a repeti- 
tion, not a continuation, of the same idea ; the 



198 £be (Barren 



eye and the mind are not always confined to 
one tract : they expatiate at times, and have 
been relieved before they returned to it. An- 
other expedient, the very reverse of this, may 
now and then be put in practice : it is to con- 
tract, instead of enlarging, the plan ; to carry 
the walk, and in some part of its course, directly 
into the field, or, at the most, to secure it from 
cattle ; but to make it quite simple, omit all its 
appendages and drop every idea of a garden. 
If neither of these nor any other means be used 
to break the length of the way, though the 
enclosures should furnish a succession of scenes, 
all beautiful, and even contrasted to each other, 
yet the walk will introduce a similarity between 
them. This species of garden, therefore, seems 
proper only for a place of a very moderate 
extent ; if it be stretched out to a great length, 
and not mixed with other characters, its same- 
ness hurts that variety, which it is its peculiar 
merit to discover. 

But the advantages attending it upon some, 
and the use of it on so many occasions, have 
raised a partiality in its favor, and it is often 
carried round a place where the whole enclosure 
is garden ; the interior openings and communi- 
cations furnish there a sufficient range, and 
they do not require that number and variety of 
appendages which must be introduced to dis- 



ftbomas Wbatelg 199 

guise the uniformity of the circuitous walk, but 
which often interfere with greater effect. It is 
at the least unnecessary in such a garden, but 
plain gravel walks to every part are commonly 
deemed to be indispensable ; they undoubtedly 
are convenient, but it must also be acknowl- 
edged, that though sometimes they adorn, yet, at 
other times, they disfigure, the scenes through 
which they are conducted. The proprietor of 
the place, who visits these scenes at different 
seasons, is most anxious for their beauty in fine 
weather ; he does not feel the restraint to be 
grievous, if all of them be not at all times equally 
accessible, and a gravel walk perpetually before 
him, especially when it is useless, must be irk- 
some ; it ought not, therefore, to be ostenta- 
tiously shown ; on many occasions it should be 
industriously concealed. That it lead to the 
capital points is sufficient ; it can never be 
requisite along the whole extent of every scene ; 
it may often skirt a part of them without appear- 
ing, or just touch upon them and withdraw ; but 
if it cannot be induced at all without hurting 
them, it ought commonly to be omitted. 

The sides of a gravel walk must correspond, 
and its course be in sweeps gently bending all 
the way. It preserves its form, though con- 
ducted through woods or along glades of the 
most licentious irregularity. But a grass walk 



2oo Zbe ©arDen 



is under no restraint : the sides of it may be 
perpetually broken, and the direction frequently 
changed — sudden turns, however, are harsh ; 
they check the idea of progress ; they are rather 
disappointments than varieties, and if they are 
familiar they are in the worst style of affecta- 
tion. The line must be curved, but it should 
not be wreathed ; if it be truly serpentine, it is 
the most unnatural of any ; it ought constantly 
to proceed, and wind only just so much, that 
the termination of the view may differ at every 
step, and the end of the walk never appear ; the 
thickets which confine it should be diversified 
with several mixtures of greens ; no distinctions 
in the forms of the shrubs or the trees will be 
lost, when there are opportunities to observe 
them so nearly ; and combinations and con- 
trasts without number may be made, which will 
be there truly ornamental. Minute beauties are 
proper in a spot precluded from great effects: and 
yet such a walk, if it be broad, is by no means 
insignificant ; it may have an importance which 
will render it more than a mere communication. 
But the peculiar merit of that species of gar- 
den which occupies the whole enclosure, con- 
sists in the larger scenes ; it can make room for 
them both in breadth and in length ; and, being 
dedicated entirely to pleasure, free from all 
other considerations, those scenes may be in 



ftbomas Wbatel^ 201 



any style which the nature of the place will al- 
low ; a number of them is expected, all different, 
sometimes contrasted, and each distinguished 
by its beauty. If the space be divided into lit- 
tle slips, and made only a collection of walks, 
it forfeits all its advantages, loses its character, 
and can have no other excellence than such as 
it may derive from situation ; whereas by a more 
liberal disposition it may be made independent 
of whatever is external ; and though prospects 
are nowhere more delightful than from a point 
of view which is also a beautiful spot, yet if in 
such a garden they should be wanting, the ele- 
gant, picturesque, and various scenes within 
itself almost supply the deficiency. 

THE GARDENS AT STOWE. 

This is the character of the gardens at Stowe ; 
for there the views into the country are only 
circumstances subordinate to the scenes, and 
the principal advantage of the situation is the 
variety of the ground within the enclosure. 
The house stands on the brow of a gentle 
ascent ; parts of the gardens lie on the declivity, 
and spread over the bottom beyond it ; this emi- 
nence is separated by a broad winding valley 
from another which is higher and steeper ; and 
the descents of both are broken by large dips 
and hollows, sloping down the sides of the hills. 



202 £be Garden 



The whole space is divided into a number 
of scenes, each distinguished with taste and 
fancy ; and the changes are so frequent, so sud- 
den, and complete, the transitions so artfully 
conducted, that the same ideas are never con- 
tinued or repeated to satiety. . 

These gardens were begun w T hen regularity 
was in fashion ; and the original boundary is 
still preserved on account of its magnificence ; 
for round the whole circuit, of between three 
and four miles, is carried a very broad gravel 
walk, planted with rows of trees, and open 
either to the park or the country ; a deep-sunk 
fence attends it all the way, and comprehends a 
space of near four hundred acres. But in the 
interior scenes of the garden few traces of regu- 
larity appear ; where it yet remains in the planta- 
tions it is generally disguised ; every symptom 
almost of formality is obliterated from the 
ground ; and an octagon basin in the bottom is 
now converted into an irregular piece of water, 
which receives on one hand two beautiful 
streams, and falls on the other down a cascade 
into a lake. 

In the front of the house is a considerable 
lawn, open to the water, beyond which are two 
elegant Doric pavilions, placed in the boundary 
of the garden, but not marking it, though the)' 
correspond to each other ; for still farther back, 



tlbomas TJQbatelg 203 

on the brow of some rising grounds without the 
enclosure, stands a noble Corinthian arch, by 
which the principal approach is conducted, and 
from which all the gardens are seen reclining 
back against their hills ; they are rich with 
plantations, full of objects, and lying on both 
sides of the house almost equally, every part is 
within a moderate distance, notwithstanding 
the extent of the whole. 

On the right of the lawn, but concealed from 
the house, is a perfect garden scene called the 
Queen's Amphitheatre, where art is avowed, 
though formality is avoided ; the foreground is 
scooped into a gentle hollow ; the plantations 
on the sides, though but just rescued from regu- 
larity, yet in style are contrasted to each other ; 
they are, on one hand, chiefly thickets, standing 
out from a wood ; on the other, they are open 
groves, through which a glimpse of the water 
is visible ; at the end of the hollow, on a little 
knoll, quite detached from all appendages, is 
placed an open Ionic rotunda ; beyond it a 
large lawn slopes across the view ; a pyramid 
stands on the brow ; the Queen's Pillar, in a 
recess on the descent ; and all the three build- 
ings being evidently intended for ornament 
alone, are peculiarly adapted to a garden scene ; 
yet their number does not render it gay ; the 
dusky hue of the pyramid, the retired situation 



204 Zhe (BarDen 



of the Queen's Pillar, and the solitary appear- 
ance of the rotunda, give it an air of gravity ; it 
is encompassed with wood ; and all external 
views are excluded ; even the opening into the 
lawn is but an opening into an enclosure. 

At the King's Pillar, very near to this, is an- 
other lovely spot, which is small, but not con- 
fined, for no termination appears ; the ground 
one way, the water another, retire under the 
trees out of sight, but nowhere meet with a 
boundary ; the view is first over some very 
broken ground, thinly and irregularly planted ; 
then between two beautiful clumps, which fea- 
ther down to the bottom, and afterwards across 
a glade, and through a little grove beyond it, 
to that part of the lake where the thickets close 
upon the brink, spread a tranquillity over the 
surface, in which their shadows are reflected. 
Nothing is admitted to disturb that quiet ; no 
building obtrudes ; for objects to fix the eye are 
needless in a scene, which may be compre- 
hended at a glance ; and none would suit the 
pastoral idea it inspires, of elegance too refined 
for a cottage, and of simplicity too pure for any 
other edifice. 

The situation of the rotunda promises a pros- 
pect more enlarged, and, in fact, most of the 
objects on this side the garden are there visible ; 
but they want both connection and contrast ; 



ftbomas ll&batelg 205 

each belongs peculiarly to some other spot ; 
they are all blended together in this, without 
meaning, and are rather shown on a map than 
formed into a picture. The water only is capi- 
tal ; a broad expanse of it is so near as to be 
seen under the little groups on the bank with- 
out interruption ; beyond it is a wood, which in 
one place leaves the lake to run up behind a 
beautiful building of three pavilions, joined by 
arcades, all of the Ionic order ; it is called 
Kent's Building ; and never was a design more 
happily conceived; it seems to be character- 
istically proper for a garden ; it is so elegant, so 
varied, and so purely ornamental ; it directly 
fronts the rotunda, and a narrow rim of the 
country appears above the trees beyond it ; but 
the effect even of this noble object is fainter 
here than at other points ; its position is 
not the most advantageous ; and it is but one 
among many other buildings, none of which 
are principal. 

The scene at the Temple of Bacchus is in 
character directly the reverse of that about the 
rotunda, though the space and the objects are 
nearly the same in both. But in this, all the 
parts concur to form one whole : the ground 
from every side shelves gradually towards the 
lake ; the plantations on the farthest bank 
open to show Kent's Building, rise from the 



2o6 Ebe (Barren 



water's edge towards the knoll on which it 
stands, and close again behind it. That elegant 
structure, inclined a little from a front view, 
becomes more beautiful by being thrown into 
perspective ; and though at a greater distance, 
is more important than before, because it is 
alone in the view ; for the Queen's Pillar and 
the rotunda are removed far aside, and every 
other circumstance refers to this interesting 
object ; the water attracts, the ground and the 
plantations direct the eye thither, and the 
country does not just glimmer in the offscape, 
but is close and eminent above the wood, and 
connected by clumps with the garden. The 
scene altogether is a most animated landscape, 
and the splendor of the building, the reflection 
in the lake, the transparency of the water, and 
the picturesque beauty of its form, diversified 
by little groups on the brink, while on the 
broadest expanse no more trees cast their shad- 
ows than are sufficient to vary the tints of the 
surface — all these circumstances, vying in lus- 
tre with each other, and uniting in the point 
to which every part of the scene is related, dif- 
fuse a peculiar brilliancy over the whole com- 
position. 

The view from Kent's Building is very differ- 
ent from those which have been hitherto 
described : they are all directed down the de- 



Gbomas TKHbatelg 2o 7 

clivity of the lawn ; this rises up the ascent ; the 
eminence, being crowned with lofty wood, 
becomes thereby more considerable and the 
hillocks, into which the general fall is broken, 
sloping farther out this way than any other, 
they also acquire an importance which they 
had not before. That particularly on which the 
rotunda is placed, seems here to be a proud 
situation, and the structure appears to be 
properly adapted to so open an exposure. The 
Temple of Bacchus, on the contrary, which 
commands such an illustrious view, is itself a 
retired object, close under the covert. The wood 
rising on the brow, and descending down one 
side of the hill, is shown to be deep ; is high, 
and seems to be higher than it is. The lawn, 
too, is extensive ; and part of the boundary 
being concealed, it suggests the idea of a still 
greater extent. A small portion only of the 
lake, indeed, is visible, but it is not here an 
object ; it is a part of the spot, and neither ter- 
mination being in sight, it has no diminutive 
appearance. If more water had been admitted, 
it might have hurt the character of the place, 
which is sober and temperate, neither solemn 
nor gay, great and simple, but elegant, above 
rusticity, yet free from ostentation. 

These are the principal scenes on one side of 
the gardens ; on the other, close to the lawn 



2o8 XLbc (Barren 



before the house, is the winding valley above- 
mentioned ; the lower part of it is assigned to 
the Elysian fields ; they are watered by a lovely 
rivulet, are very lightsome, and very airy, so 
thinly are the trees scattered about them, are 
open at one end to more water and a larger 
glade, and the rest of the boundary is frequent- 
ly broken to let in objects afar off, which ap- 
pear still more distant from the manner of 
showing them. The entrance is under a Doric 
arch, which coincides with an opening among 
the trees, and forms a kind of vista, through 
which a Pembroke bridge just below, and a 
lodge built like a castle in the park, are seen 
in a beautiful perspective. That bridge is at one 
extremity of the gardens, the Queen's Pillar is 
at another, yet both are visible from the same 
station in the Elysian fields, and all these 
external objects are unaffectedly introduced, 
divested of their own appurtenances, and com- 
bined with others which belong to the spot. 
The Temple of Friendship also is in sight just 
without the place, and within it are the Temples 
of Ancient Virtue and of the British worthies, 
the one in an elevated situation, the other down 
in the valley, and near to the water. Both are 
decorated with the effigies of those who have 
been most distinguished for military, civil, or 
literary merit ; and near to the former stands a 



tTbomas Wbatelg 209 

rostral column, sacred to trie memory of Cap- 
tain Grenville, who fell in an action at sea. By 
placing here the meed of valor, and by filling 
these fields with the representations of those 
who have deserved best of mankind, the char- 
acter intended to be given to the spot is justly 
and poetically expressed, and the number of the 
images which are presented or excited per- 
fectly corresponds with it. Solitude was never 
reckoned among the charms of Elysium ; it has 
been always pictured as the mansion of delight 
and of joy, and in this imitation every circum- 
stance accords with that established idea : the 
vivacity of the stream which flows through the 
vale, the glimpses of another approaching to 
join it, the sprightly verdure of the green- 
sward, and every bust of the British worthies, 
reflected in the water ; the variety of the trees, 
the lightness of their greens, their disposition, 
all of them distinct objects, and dispersed over 
gentle inequalities of the ground, together with 
the multiplicity of objects, both within and 
without, which embellish and enliven the scene, 
give it a gayety which the imagination can 
hardly conceive, or the heart wish to be ex- 
ceeded. 

Close by this spot, and a perfect contrast to 
it, is the alder grove, a deep recess in the midst 
of a shade, which the blaze of noon cannot 



2io tlbe (Barfcen 



brighten. The water seems to be a stagnated 
pool, eating into its banks, and of a peculiar 
color, not dirty, but cloudy, and dimly reflect- 
ing the dun hue of the horse-chestnuts and 
alders, which press upon the brink. The stems 
of the latter, rising in clusters from the same 
root, bear one another down, and slant over the 
water. Misshaped elms and ragged firs are fre- 
quent in the wood which encompasses the 
hollow ; the trunks of dead trees are left stand- 
ing amongst them ; and the uncouth sumach, 
and the yew, with elder, nut, and holly, com- 
pose the underwood ; some limes and laurels 
are intermixt, but they are not many. The 
wood is in general of the darkest greens, and 
the foliage is thickened with ivy, which not 
only twines up the trees, but creeps also over 
the falls of the ground ; they are steep and 
abrupt. The gravel walk is covered with moss ; 
and a grotto at the end, faced with broken flints 
and pebbles, preserves, in the simplicity of its 
materials and the duskiness of its color, all the 
character of its situation. Two little rotundas 
near it were better away ; one building is 
sufficient for such a scene of solitude as this, 
in which more circumstances of gloom concur 
than were ever perhaps collected together. 

Immediately above the alder grove is the 
principal eminence in the garden ; it is divided 



Gbomas Mbatele 211 

by a great dip into two pinnacles, upon one of 
which is a large Gothic building. The space be- 
fore this structure is an extensive lawn ; the 
ground on one side falls immediately into the 
dip ; and the trees which border the lawn, sink- 
ing with the ground, the house rises above 
them, and fills the interval. The vast pile 
seems to be still larger than it is ; for it is 
thrown into perspective, and between and above 
the heads of the trees, the upper story, the por- 
ticos, the turrets and balustrades, and all the 
slated roofs appear in a noble confusion. On 
the other side of the Gothic building the ground 
slopes down a long-continued declivity into a 
bottom, which seems to be perfectly irriguous. 
Divers streams of water wander about it in 
several directions ; the conflux of that which 
runs from the Elysian fields with another below 
it, is in full sight ; and a plain wooden bridge 
thrown over the latter, and evidently designed 
for a passage, imposes an air of reality on the 
river. Beyond it is one of the Doric porticos 
which front the house, but now it is alone ; it 
stands on a little bank above the water, and is 
seen under some trees at a distance before it. 
Thus grouped, and thus accompanied, it is a 
happy incident, concurring with many other 
circumstances to distinguish this landscape by a 
character of cheerfulness and amenity. 



2i2 Zhc (Sar&en 



From the Gothic building a broad walk leads 
to the Grecian valley, which is a scene of more 
grandeur than any in the gardens ; it enters 
them from the park, spreading at first to a 
considerable breadth, then winds, grows nar- 
rower but deeper, and loses itself at last in a 
thicket, behind some lofty elms, which interrupt 
the sight of the termination. Lovely woods and 
groves hang all the way on the declivities, and 
the open space is broken by detached trees, 
which near the park are cautiously and sparing- 
ly introduced, lest the breadth should be con- 
tracted by them ; but as the valley sinks they 
advance more boldly down the sides, stretch 
across or along the bottom, and cluster at times 
into groups and forms, which multiply the 
varieties of the larger plantations. Those are 
sometimes close coverts, and sometimes open 
groves. The trees rise in one upon high stems, 
and feather down to the bottom in another, and 
between them are short openings in the park or 
the gardens. In the midst of the scene, just at 
the bend of the valley and commanding it on 
both sides, upon a large, easy, natural rise, is 
placed the Temple of Concord and Victory. At 
one place its majestic front of six Ionic col- 
umns, supporting a pediment filled with bas- 
relief, and the points of it crowned with statues, 
faces the view ; at another, the beautiful colon- 



Gbomas TJdbatelg 213 

nade on the side of ten lofty pillars retires in 
perspective. It is seen from every part, and 
impressing its own character of dignity on all 
around, it spreads an awe over the whole, but 
no gloom, no melancholy attends it. The sensa- 
tions it excites are rather placid, but full of 
respect, admiration, and solemnity ; no water 
appears to enliven, no distant prospect to enrich, 
the view. The parts of the scene are larger, the 
idea of it sublime, and the execution happy ; 
it is independent of all adventitious circum- 
stances, and relies on itself for its greatness. 

The scenes which have been described are 
such as are most remarkable for beauty or 
character, but the gardens contain many more ; 
and even the objects in these, by their several 
combinations, produce very different effects, 
within the distance sometimes of a few paces, 
from the unevenness of the ground, the variety 
of the plantations, and the number of the build- 
ings. The multiplicity of the last has indeed 
been often urged as an objection to Stowe ; and 
certainly when all are seen by a stranger in two 
or three hours, twenty or thirty capital struc- 
tures, mixed with others of inferior note, do 
seem too many ; but the growth of the wood 
every day weakens the objection, by concealing 
them one from the other. Each belongs to a 
distinct scene ; and if they are considered sep- 



2i4 £be (SarDen 



arately, at different times, and at leisure, it may 
be difficult to determine which to take away ; 
yet still it must be acknowledged that their 
frequency destroys all ideas of silence and re- 
tirement. Magnificence and splendor are the 
characteristics of Stowe ; it is like one of those 
places celebrated in antiquity, which were de- 
voted to the purposes of religion, and filled 
with sacred groves, hallowed fountains, and 
temples dedicated to several deities ; the resort 
of distant nations, and the object of venera- 
tion to half the heathen world. This pomp is 
at Stowe blended with beauty, and the place is 
equally distinguished by its amenity and its 
grandeur. 

In the midst of so much embellishment as 
may be introduced into this species of garden, 
a plain field, or a sheep walk, is sometimes an 
agreeable relief, and even wilder scenes may 
occasionally be admitted. These indeed are not 
properly parts of a garden, but they may be 
comprehended within the verge of it, and their 
proximity to the more ornamented scenes is at 
least a convenience, that the transition from the 
one to the other may be easy, and the change 
always in our option : for though a spot in the 
highest state of improvement be a necessary 
appendage to a seat, yet in a place which is 



Gbomas WbatelE 



215 



perfect, other characters will not be wanting ; 
if they cannot be had on a large scale, they are 
acceptable on a smaller ; and so many circum- 
stances are common to all, that they may always 
border on each other. 





OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 



DESCRIPTION OF A CHINESE GARDEN. 



From " The Citizen of the World.' 



THE English have not yet brought the art 
of gardening to the same perfection with 
the Chinese, but have lately begun to imitate 
them : nature is now followed with greater as- 
siduity than formerly ; the trees are suffered 
to shoot out into the utmost luxuriance ; the 
streams, no longer forced from their native 
beds, are permitted to wind along the valleys ; 
spontaneous flowers take the place of finished 
parterre, and the enamelled meadow of the 
shaven green. 

Yet still the English are far behind us in this 
charming art ; their designers have not yet 
attained a power of uniting instruction with 
beauty. A European will scarcely conceive 



Olivet (Sotoemftb 217 

my meaning, when I say that there is scarce a 
garden in China which does not contain some 
fine moral, couched under the general design, 
where one is not taught wisdom as he walks, 
and feels the force of some noble truth, or deli- 
cate precept, resulting from the disposition 
of the groves, streams, or grottos. Permit me 
to illustrate what I mean by a description of my 
gardens at Quamsi. My heart still hovers 
round those scenes of former happiness with 
pleasure ; and I find a satisfaction in enjoying 
them at this distance, though but in imagina- 
tion. 

You descended from the house between two 
groves of trees, planted in such a manner that 
they were impenetrable to the eye ; while on 
each hand the way was adorned with all that 
was beautiful in porcelain, statuary, and paint- 
ing. This passage from the house opened into 
an arena surrounded with rocks, flowers, trees, 
and shrubs, but all so disposed as if each was 
the spontaneous production of nature. As you 
proceeded forward on this lawn, to your right 
and left hand were two gates, opposite each 
other, of very different architecture and design ; 
and before you lay a temple, built rather with 
minute elegance than ostentation. 

The right-hand gate was planned with the 
utmost simplicity, or rather rudeness ; ivy 



2i8 Gbe (Barren 



clasped round the pillars, the baleful cypress 
hung over it ; time seems to have destroyed all 
the smoothness and regularity of the stone ; two 
champions with lifted clubs appeared in the act 
of guarding its access ; dragons and serpents 
were seen in the most hideous attitudes, to deter 
the spectator from approaching ; and the per- 
spective view that lay behind seemed dark and 
gloomy to the last degree ; the stranger was 
tempted to enter only from the motto — Pervia 
Virtuti. 

The opposite gate was formed in a very indif- 
ferent manner ; the architecture was light, ele- 
gant, and inviting ; flowers hung in wreaths 
round the pillars ; all was finished in the most 
exact and masterly manner ; the very stone of 
which it was built still preserved its polish ; 
nymphs, wrought by the hand of a master, in 
the most alluring attitudes, beckoned the stran- 
ger to approach ; while all that lay behind, as 
far as the eye could reach, seemed gay, luxuri- 
ant, and capable of affording endless pleasures. 
The motto itself contributed to invite him, for 
over the gate were written these words — Facilis 
Descensus. 

By this time I fancy you begin to perceive 
that the gloomy gate was designed to represent 
the road to Virtue ; the opposite, the more 
agreeable passage to Vice. It is but natural to 



©liver <3oR>smttb 219 



suppose that the spectator was always tempted 
to enter by the gate which offered him so many 
allurements. I always in these cases left him 
to his choice, but generally found that he took 
to the left, which promised most entertainment. 

Immediately upon his entering the gate of 
Vice the trees and flowers were disposed in such 
a manner as to make the most pleasing impres- 
sion ; but as he walked farther on, he insensibly 
found the garden assuming the air of a wilder- 
ness ; the landscapes began to darken, the paths 
grew more intricate ; he appeared to go down- 
wards ; frightful rocks seemed to hang over his 
head ; gloomy caverns, unexpected precipices, 
awful ruins, heaps of unburied bones, and ter- 
rifying sounds caused by unseen waters, began to 
take the place of what at first appeared so lovely. 
It was in vain to attempt returning ; the laby- 
rinth was too much perplexed for any but my- 
self to find the way back. In short, when suffi- 
ciently impressed with the horrors of what he 
saw, and the imprudence of his choice, I brought 
him by a hidden door a shorter way back into 
the area from whence at first he had strayed. 

The gloomy gate now presented itself before 
the stranger, and though there seemed little in 
its appearance to tempt his curiosity, yet, en- 
couraged by the motto, he gradually proceeded. 
The darkness of the entrance, the frightful fig- 



22o Gbe (3arDen 



ures that seemed to obstruct his way, the trees 
of the mournful green, conspired at first to dis- 
gust him ; as he went forward, however, all 
began to open and wear a more pleasing ap- 
pearance ; beautiful cascades, beds of flowers, 
trees loaded with fruit or blossoms, and unex- 
pected brooks, improved the scene. He now 
found that he was ascending, and, as he pro- 
ceeded, all nature grew more beautiful ; the 
prospect widened as he went higher ; even the 
air itself seemed to become more pure. Thus 
pleased and happy from unexpected beauties, 
I at last led him to an arbor, from whence he 
could view the garden and the whole country 
around, and where he might own that the road 
to Virtue terminated in Happiness. 

Though from this description you may ima- 
gine that a vast tract of ground was necessary to 
exhibit such a pleasing variety in, yet be as- 
sured I have seen several gardens in England 
take up ten times the space which mine did, 
without half the beauty. A very small extent 
of ground is enough for an elegant taste ; the 
greater room is required if magnificence is in 
view. There is no spot, though ever so little, 
which a skilful designer might not thus im- 
prove, so as to convey a delicate allegory, and 
impress the mind with truths the most useful 
and necessary. Adieu ! 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

THE HISTORY OF A POET'S GARDEN. 

OF all men who form gay illusions of distant 
happiness, perhaps the poet is the most 
sanguine. Such is the ardor of his hopes, that 
they are often equal to actual enjoyment ; he 
feels more in expectance than actual fruition. 
I have often regarded the character of this kind 
with some degree of envy. A man possessed of 
such warm imagination commands all nature, 
and arrogates possessions of which the owner 
has a blunter relish. While life continues, the 
alluring prospect lies before him ; he travels in 
the pursuit with confidence, and resigns it only 
with his last breath. 

It is this happy confidence which gives life its 
true relish, and keeps up our spirits amidst every 
distress and disappointment. How much less 
would be done if a man knew how little he can 



222 Zbe (Barfcen 



do ! How wretched a creature would he be if 
he saw the end as well as the beginning of his 
projects ! He would have nothing left but to sit 
down in torpid despair, and exchange employ- 
ment for actual calamity. 

I was led into this train of thinking upon lately 
visiting the beautiful gardens of the late Mr. 
Shenstone,* who was himself a poet, and pos- 
sessed of that warm imagination which made 
him ever foremost in the pursuit of flying hap- 
piness. Could he but have foreseen the end of 
all his schemes, for whom he was improving, 
and what changes his designs were to undergo, 
he would have scarcely amused his innocent 
life with what, for several years, employed him 
in a most harmless manner, and abridged his 
scanty fortune. As the progress of this im- 
provement is a true picture of sublunary vicissi- 
tude, I could not help calling up my imagina- 
tion, which, while I walked pensively along, 
suggested the following reverie. 

As I was turning my back upon a beautiful 
piece of water enlivened with cascades and rock- 
work, and entering a dark walk by which ran a 
prattling brook, the Genius of the Place ap- 
peared before me, but more resembling the God 
of Time than him more peculiarly appointed to 

* " The Leasowes," sometimes spoken of as a ferine 
ornee, situated between Birmingham and Hagley. 



©liver (Bolfcsmttb 223 

the care of gardens. Instead of shears he bore 
a scythe ; and he appeared rather with the im- 
plements of husbandry than those of a modern 
gardener. Having remembered this place in its 
pristine beauty, I could not help condoling with 
him on its present ruinous situation. I spoke to 
him of the many alterations which had been 
made, and all for the worse ; of the many shades 
which had been taken away ; of the bowers that 
were destroyed by neglect, and the hedgerows 
that were spoiled by clipping. The Genius 
with a sigh received my condolement, and 
assured me that he was equally a martyr to 
ignorance and taste, to refinement and rusticity. 
Seeing me desirous of knowing further, he went 
on : 

"You see, in the place before you, the pater- 
nal inheritance of a poet ; and to a man content 
with little, fully sufficient for his subsistence : 
but a strong imagination and a long acquaint- 
ance with the rich are dangerous foes to con- 
tentment. Our poet, instead of sitting down to 
enjoy life, resolved to prepare for its future en- 
joyment, and set about converting a place of 
profit into a scene of pleasure. This he at first 
supposed could be accomplished at a small ex- 
pense ; and he was willing for a while to stint 
his income, to have an opportunity of display- 
ing his taste. The improvement in this manner 



224 tTbe (Barren 



went forward ; one beauty attained led him to 
wish for some other : but he still hoped that 
every emendation would be the last. It was 
now, therefore, found that the improvement ex- 
ceeded the subsidy, that the place was grown too 
large and too fine for the inhabitant. But that 
pride which was once exhibited could not retire : 
the garden was made for the owner, and though 
it was become unfit for him, he could not will- 
ingly resign it to another. Thus the first idea 
of its beauties contributing to the happiness of 
his life was found unfaithful ; so that, instead 
of looking within for satisfaction, he began to 
think of having recourse to the praises of those 
who came to visit his improvement. 

" In consequence of this hope, which now 
took possession of his mind, the gardens were 
opened to the visits of every stranger ; and the 
country flocked round to walk, to criticise, to 
admire, and to do mischief. He soon found 
that the admirers of his taste left by no means 
such strong marks of their applause as the 
envious did of their malignity. All the win- 
dows of his temples, and the walls of his re- 
treats, were impressed with the characters of 
profaneness, ignorance, and obscenity ; his 
hedges were broken, his statues and urns de- 
faced, and his lawns worn bare. It was now, 
therefore, necessary to shut up the gardens 



©liver ©olOsmttb 225 

once more, and to deprive the public of that 
happiness which had before ceased to be his 
own. 

"In this situation the poet continued for a 
time in the character of a jealous lover, fond of 
the beauty he keeps, but unable to supply the 
extravagance of every demand. The garden by 
this time was completely grown and finished ; 
the marks of art were covered up by the luxuri- 
ance of nature ; the winding walks were worn 
dark ; the brook assumed a natural sylvage ; 
and the rocks were covered with moss. Noth- 
ing now remained but to enjoy the beauties of 
the place, when the poor poet died, and his gar- 
den was obliged to be sold for the benefit of 
those who had contributed to its embellishment. 

" The beauties of the place had now for some 
time been celebrated as well in prose as in verse ; 
and all men of taste wished for so envied a spot, 
where every urn was marked with the poet's 
pencil, and every walk awakened genius and 
meditation. The first purchaser was one Mr. 
Truepenny, a button-maker, who was possessed 
of three thousand pounds, and was willing also 
to be possessed of taste and genius. 

"As the poet's ideas were for the natural 
wildness of the landscape, the button-maker's 
were for the more regular productions of art. 
He conceived, perhaps, that as it is a beauty in 



226 XLhe (Sarfcen 



a button to be of a regular pattern, so the same 
regularity ought to obtain in a landscape. Be 
this as it will, he employed the shears to some 
purpose ; he clipped up the hedges, cut down 
the gloomy walks, made vistas upon the stables 
and hog-sties, and showed his friends that a 
man of taste should always be doing. 

" The next candidate for taste and genius was 
a captain of a ship, who bought the garden be- 
cause the former possessor could find nothing 
more to mend ; but, unfortunately, he had taste 
too. His great passion lay in building, in mak- 
ing Chinese temples, and cage-work summer- 
houses. As the place before had an appearance 
of retirement and inspired meditation, he gave 
it a more peopled air ; every turning presented 
a cottage, or ice-house, or a temple ; the im- 
provement was converted into a little city, and 
it only wanted inhabitants to give it the air of a 
village in the Bast Indies. 

' ' In this manner, in less than ten years, the 
improvement has gone through the hands of as 
many proprietors, who were all willing to have 
taste, and to show their taste too. As the place 
had received its best finishing from the hand of 
the first possessor, so every innovator only lent 
a hand to do mischief. Those parts which were 
obscure have been enlightened ; those walks 
which led naturally, have been twisted into 



©liver (Sol&smitb 



227 



serpentine windings. The color of the flowers 
of the field is not more various than the variety 
of tastes that have been employed here, and all 
in direct contradiction to the original aim of the 
first improver. Could the original possessor but 
revive, with what a sorrow T ful heart would he 
look upon his favorite spot again ! He would 
scarcely recollect a Dryad or a Wood-nymph of 
his former acquaintance, and might perhaps 
find himself as much a stranger in his own 
plantation as in the deserts of Siberia." 





HORACE WALPOLB. 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WIEUAM KENT. 



UNDER the auspices of Lord Burlington and 
Lord Pembroke, architecture, as I have 
said, recovered its genuine lustre. The former, 
the Apollo of arts, found a proper priest in the 
person of Mr. Kent. As I mean no panegyric 
on any man, beyond what he deserved, or what 
to the best of my possibly erroneous judgment 
I think he deserved, I shall speak with equal 
impartiality on the merits and faults of Kent, 
the former of which exceedingly preponderated. 
He was a painter, an architect, and the father 
of modern gardening. In the first character, 
he was below mediocrity ; in the second, he was 
a restorer of the science ; in the last, an original, 
and the inventor of an art that realizes painting 
and improves nature. Mahomet imagined an 
Elysium, but Kent created many. 



Iborace Walpole 229 



He was born in Yorkshire and put apprentice 
to a coach-painter, but feeling the emotions of 
genius, he left his master without leave, and 
repaired to London, where he studied a little, 
and gave indications enough of abilities to excite 
a generous patronage in some gentlemen of his 
own county, who raised a contribution sufficient 
to send him to Rome, whither he accompanied 
Mr. Talman in 1710. In that capital of the arts 
he studied under Cavalier Luti, and in the 
Academy gained the second prize of the 
second class ; still without suspecting that 
there was a sister art within his reach, 
more congenial to his talents. Though his first 
resources were exhausted, he still found friends. 
Another of his countrymen, Sir John Went- 
worth, allowed him £40 a year for seven years. 
But it was at Rome that his better star brought 
him acquainted with Lord Burlington, whose 
sagacity discovered the rich vein of genius that 
had been hid from the artist himself. On their 
return to England in 17 19, Lord Burlington 
gave him an apartment in his own house, and 
added all the graces of favor and recommenda- 
tion. By that noble person's interest Kent was 
employed in various works, both as a painter 
of history and portrait ; and yet it must be al- 
lowed that in each branch partiality must have 
operated strongly to make his lordship believe 



230 Gbe <3arDen 

he discovered any merit in his friend. His por- 
traits bore little resemblance to the persons that 
sat for them, and the coloring was worse, more 
raw and undetermined than that of the most 
errant journeymen to the profession. The 
whole lengths at Ksher are standing evidences 
of this assertion. In his ceilings, Kent's draw- 
ing was as defective as the coloring of his 
portraits, and as void of every merit. I have 
mentioned Hogarth's parody, if I may call it so, 
of his picture at St. Clement's. The hall at 
Wanstead is another proof of his incapacity. 
Sir Robert Walpole, who was persuaded to em- 
ploy him at Houghton, where he painted several 
ceilings and the staircase, would not permit 
him, however, to work in colors, which would 
have been still more disgraced by the presence 
of so many capital pictures, but restrained him 
to chiaroscuro. If his faults are thence not so 
glaring, they are scarce less numerous. He 
painted a staircase in the same way for Lord 
Townshend at Rainham. 

To compensate for his bad paintings, he had 
an excellent taste for ornaments, and gave de- 
signs for most of the furniture at Houghton, as 
he did for several other persons. Yet chaste as 
these ornaments were, they were often unmeas- 
urably ponderous. His chimney-pieces, though 
lighter than those of Inigo, whom he imitated, 



Iborace Walpole 231 



are frequently heavy ; and his constant intro- 
duction of pediments and the members of archi- 
tecture over doors and within rooms, was 
disproportioned and cumbrous. Indeed, I 
much question whether the Romans admitted 
regular architecture within their houses. At 
least the discoveries at Herculaneum testify 
that a light and fantastic architecture, of a very 
Indian air, made a common decoration of private 
apartments. Kent's style, however, predomi- 
nated authoritatively during his life ; and his 
oracle was so much consulted by all who affected 
taste, that nothing was thought complete with- 
out his assistance. He was not only consulted 
for furniture, as frames of pictures, glasses, 
tables, chairs, etc., but for plate, for a barge, 
for a cradle. And so impetuous was fashion, 
that two great ladies prevailed on him to make 
designs for their birthday gowns. The one he 
dressed in a petticoat decorated with columns 
of the five orders ; the other like a bronze, in a 
copper-colored satin, with ornaments of gold. 
He was not more happy in other works in 
which he misapplied his genius. The gilt rails 
to the hermitage at Richmond were in truth 
but a trifling impropriety ; but his celebrated 
monument of Shakespeare in the abbey was 
preposterous. What an absurdity to place busts 
at the angles of a pedestal, and at the bottom 



232 Gbe <3arfcen 



of that pedestal ! Whose choice the busts were 
I do not know ; but though Queen Elizabeth's 
head might be intended to mark the era in 
which the poet flourished, why were Richard 
II. and Henry V. selected ? Are the pieces 
under the names of those princes two of 
Shakespeare's most capital works? or what 
reason can be assigned for giving them the 
preference ? 

As Kent's genius was not universal, he has 
succeeded as ill in Gothic. The King's Bench 
at Westminster and Mr. Pelham's house at 
Esher are proofs how little he conceived either 
the principles or graces of that architecture. 
Yet he w T as sometimes sensible of its beauties, 
and published a print of Wolsey's noble hall at 
Hampton Court, now crowded and half-hidden 
by a theatre. Kent gave the design for the 
ornaments of the chapel at the Prince of 
Orange's wedding, of which he also made a 
print.* 

Such of the drawings as he designed for Gay's 
' ' Fables " have some truth and nature ; but who- 
ever would search for his faults, will find an ample 
crop in a very favorite work of his, the prints 
for Spenser's " Fairy Queen." As the drawings 
were exceedingly cried up by his admirers, and 

* His vignettes to the large edition of Pope's works are 
in good taste. 



Iborace TKHalpole 233 



disappointed the public in proportion, the 
blame was thrown on the engraver; but so 
far unjustly, that, though ill-executed, the 
wretchedness of drawing, the total ignorance 
of perspective, the want of variety, the dispro- 
portion of the buildings, the awkwardness of 
the attitudes, could have been the faults of the 
inventor only. There are figures issuing from 
cottages not so high as their shoulders, castles 
in which the towers could not contain an infant, 
and knights who hold their spears as men do 
who are lifting a load sideways. The landscapes 
are the only tolerable parts, and yet the trees 
are seldom other than young beeches, to which 
Kent, as a planter, was accustomed. 

But in architecture his taste was deservedly 
admired ; and without enumerating particulars, 
the staircase at Lady Isabella Finch's, in Berke- 
ley Square, is as beautiful a piece of scenery, 
and, considering the space, of art, as can be 
imagined. The Temple of Venus at Stowe has 
simplicity and merit, and the great room at Mr. 
Pelham's, in Arlington Street, is as remarkable 
for magnificence. I do not admire equally the 
room ornamented with marble and gilding at 
Kensington. The staircase there is the least 
defective work of his pencil, and his ceilings in 
that palace from antique paintings, which he 
first happily introduced, show that he was not 



234 ftbe <3arDen 



too ridiculously prejudiced iu favor of his own 
historic compositions. 

Of all his works, his favorite production w y as 
the Earl of Leicester's house, at Holkam, in 
Norfolk. The great hall, with the flight of 
steps at the upper end, in which he proposed 
to place a colossal Jupiter, was a noble idea. 
How the designs of that house, which I have 
seen a hundred times in Kent's original draw- 
ings, came to be published under another name, 
and without the slightest mention of the real 
architect, is beyond comprehension. The bridge, 
the temple, the great gateway, all built, I be- 
lieve, the tw T o first certainly, under Kent's own 
eye, are alike passed off as the works of another ; 
and yet no man need envy or deny him the 
glory of having oppressed a triumphal arch with 
an Egyptian pyramid. Holkam has its faults, 
but they are Kent's faults, and marked with all 
the peculiarities of his style. 

As I intend to consider him as the inventor 
of modern gardening in a chapter by itself, I 
will conclude this account of him with the few 
remaining circumstances of his life. By the 
patronage of the queen, of the Dukes of Graf- 
ton and Newcastle, and Mr. Pelham, and by the 
interest of his constant friend, he was made 
master carpenter, architect, keeper of the pic- 
tures, and, after the death of Jervas, principal 



Iborace TKItalpole 235 

painter to the crown ; the whole, including a 
pension of ^"ioo a year, which was given him 
for his works at Kensington, producing ^600 a 
year. In 1743 he had a disorder in his eyes 
that was thought paralytic, but recovered. 
But in March, 1748, he had an inflammation 
both in his bowels and foot, which turned to a 
general mortification, and put an end to his life 
at Burlington House, April 12, 1748, in the 
sixty-fourth year of his age. He was buried in 
a very handsome manner in Lord Burlington's 
vault at Chiswick. His fortune, which, with 
pictures and books, amounted to about ten 
thousand pounds, he divided between his rela- 
tions and an actress with whom he had long 
lived in particular friendship. 




HORACE WALPOLE. 

THE HISTORY OF THE MODERN TASTE IN GAR- 
DENING.* 



GARDENING was probably one of the first 
arts that succeeded to that of building 
houses, and naturally attended property and in- 
dividual possession. Culinary and afterwards 
medicinal herbs were the objects of every head 
of a family ; it became convenient to have them 
within reach, without seeking them at random 
in woods, in meadows, and on mountains, as 
often as they were wanted. When the earth 
ceased to furnish spontaneously all these primi- 
tive luxuries, and culture became requisite, sepa- 
rate enclosures for rearing herbs grew expedient. 
Fruits were in the same predicament, and those 
most in use or that demand attention, must have 

* Printed at Strawberry Hill, 1771. Translated into 
French by the Duke de Nivernois, and printed at Straw- 
berry Hill, 1785. 



Iboraee Matpole 237 

entered into and extended the domestic en- 
closure. The good man Noah, we are told, 
planted a vineyard, drank of the wine, and was 
drunken, and everybody knows the conse- 
quences. Thus we acquired kitchen-gardens, 
orchards, and vineyards. I am apprised that 
the prototype of all these sorts was the garden 
of Eden, but as that paradise was a good deal 
larger than any we read of afterwards, being 
enclosed by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, 
and Euphrates, as every tree that was pleasant 
to the sight and good for food grew in it, and 
as two other trees were likewise found there, 
of which not a slip or sucker remains, it does 
not belong to the present discussion. After the 
fall no man living was suffered to enter into the 
garden ; and the poverty and necessities of our 
first ancestors hardly allowed them time to make 
improvements on their estates in imitation of 
it, supposing any plan had been preserved. 
A cottage and a slip of ground for a cabbage 
and a gooseberry-bush, such as we see by the 
side of a common, were in all probability the 
earliest seats and gardens : a well and bucket 
succeeded to the Pison and Euphrates. As 
settlements increased, the orchard and the 
vineyard followed ; and the earliest princes 
of tribes possessed just the necessaries of a 
modern farmer. 



238 ttbe (Barfcett 



Matters, we may well believe, remained long 
in this situation ; and though the generality of 
mankind form their ideas from the import of 
words in their own age, we have no reason to 
think that for many centuries the term garden 
implied more than a kitchen-garden or orchard. 
When a Frenchman reads of the garden of 
Eden, I do not doubt but that he concludes it 
was something approaching to that of Ver- 
sailles, with dipt hedges, berceaus, and trellis- 
work. If his devotion humbles him so far as 
to allow that, considering who designed it, there 
might be a labyrinth full of ^E)sop's fables, yet 
he does not conceive that four of the largest 
rivers in the world were half so magnificent as 
a hundred fountains full of statues by Giradon. 
It is thus that the word garden has at all times 
passed for whatever was understood by that 
term in different countries. But that it meant 
no more than a kitchen-garden or orchard for 
several centuries, is evident from those few de- 
scriptions that are preserved of the most famous 
gardens of antiquity. 

That of Alcinous, in the Odyssey, is the most 
renowned in the heroic times. Is there an ad- 
mirer of Homer who can read his description 
without rapture ; or who does not form to his 
imagination a scene of delights more picturesque 
than the landscapes of Tinian or Juan Fernandez ? 



Iborace tKflalpole 239 



Yet what was that boasted paradise with which 

"the gods ordain'd 
To grace Alcinous and his happy land" ?— Pope. 

Why, divested of harmonious Greek and be- 
witching poetry, it was a small orchard and 
vineyard, with some beds of herbs and two 
fountains that watered them, enclosed within a 
quickset hedge. The whole compass of this 
pompous garden enclosed — four acres. 

" Four acres was th' allotted space of ground, 
Fenc'd with a green inclosure all around." 

The trees were apples, figs, pomegranates, 
pears, olives, and vines. 

" Tall thriving trees confess'd the fruitful mould ; 
The redd'ning apple ripens into gold. 
Here the blue fig with luscious juice o'erflows ; 
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows. 
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, 
And verdant olives flourish round the year. 



Beds of all various herbs, for ever green, 
In beauteous order terminate the scene." 

Alcinous' garden was planted by the poet, en- 
riched by him with the fairy gift of eternal 
summer, and, no doubt, an effort of imagina- 
tion surpassing any thing he had ever seen. As 
he has bestowed on the same happy prince a 
palace with brazen walls and columns of silver, 



240 Zbc (Bar&en 



he certainly intended that the garden should 
be proportionately magnificent. We are sure, 
therefore, that as late as Homer's age, an en- 
closure of four acres, comprehending orchard, 
vineyard, and kitchen-garden, was a stretch of 
luxury the world at that time had never beheld. 

The hanging gardens of Babylon were a still 
greater prodigy. We are not acquainted with 
their disposition or contents, but as they are 
supposed to have been formed on terraces and 
walls of the palace, whither soil was conveyed 
on purpose, we are very certain of what they 
were not ; I mean, they must have been trifling, 
of no extent, and a wanton instance of expense 
and labor. In other words, they were what 
sumptuous gardens have been in all ages till 
the present — unnatural, enriched by art, possi- 
bly with fountains, statues, balustrades, and 
summer-houses, and were any thing but ver- 
dant and rural. 

From the days of Homer to those of Pliny, we 
have no traces to lead our guess to what were 
the gardens of the intervening ages. When Ro- 
man authors, whose climate instilled a wish for 
cool retreats, speak of their enjoyments in that 
kind, they sigh for grottos, caves, and the re- 
freshing hollows of mountains, near irriguous 
and shaded founts ; or boast of their porticos, 
walks of planes, canals, baths, and breezes from 



Iborace TMalpole 241 



the sea. Their gardens are never mentioned as 
affording shade and shelter from the rage of the 
dog-star. Pliny has left us descriptions of two 
of his villas. As he used his L,aurentine villa 
for his winter retreat, it is not surprising that 
the garden makes no considerable part of the 
account. All he says of it is, that the gestatio 
or place of exercise, which surrounded the gar- 
den (the latter consequently not being very 
large), was bounded by a hedge of box, and 
where that was perished, with rosemary ; that 
there was a walk of vines, and that most of the 
trees were fig and mulberry, the soil not being 
proper for any other sorts. 

On his Tuscan villa he is more diffuse ; the 
garden makes a considerable part of the descrip- 
tion — and what was the principal beauty of that 
pleasiure-ground ? Exactly what was the admi- 
ration of this country about threescore years 
ago — box-trees cut into monsters, animals, let- 
ters, and the names of the master and the artifi- 
cer. In an age when architecture displayed 
all its grandeur, all its purity, and all its taste ; 
when arose Vespasian's amphitheatre, the Tem- 
ple of Peace, Trajan's forum, Domitian's baths, 
and Adrian's villa, the ruins and vestiges of 
which still excite our astonishment and curi- 
osity, a Roman consul, a polished emperor's 
friend, and a man of elegant literature and taste 



242 Gbe (3arfcen 



delighted in what the mob now scarce admire in 
a college-garden. All the ingredients of Pliny's 
correspond exactly with those laid out by Lon- 
don and Wise on Dutch principles. He talks 
of slopes, terraces, a wilderness, shrubs method- 
ically trimmed, a marble basin, * pipes spouting 
water, a cascade falling into the basin, bay- 
trees, alternately planted with planes, and a 
straight walk, from whence issued others part- 
ed off by hedges of box, and apple-trees, with 
obelisks placed between every two. There wants 
nothing but the embroidery of a parterre, to 
make a garden in the reign of Trajan serve for 
a description of one in that of King William, f 
In one passage above Pliny seems to have con- 

* The English gardens described by Hentzner in the 
reign of Elizabeth are exact copies of those of Pliny. In 
that at Whitehall was a sun-dial and jet-d'eau, which, on 
turning a cock, spurted out water and sprinkled the 
spectators. In L,ord Burleigh's, at Theobald's, were obe- 
lisks, pyramids, and circular porticos, with cisterns of 
lead for bathing. At Hampton Court the garden walls 
were covered with rosemary, a custom, he says, very 
common in England. At Theobald's was a labyrinth 
also, an ingenuity I shall mention presently to have 
been frequent in that age. 

f Dr. Plot, in his " Natural History of Oxfordshire," p. 
380, seems to have been a great admirer of trees carved 
into the most heterogeneous forms, which he calls topiary 
works, and quotes one Laurembergius for saying thar'the 
English are as expert as most nations in that kind of 
sculpture ; for which Hampton Court was particularly 
remarkable. The doctor then names other gardens that 
flourished with animals and castles, formed arte topiaria , 
and above all a wren's nest that was capacious enough 
to receive a man to sit on a seat made within for that 
purpose. 



Horace "Malpole 243 

ceived that natural irregularity might be a 
beauty: in opere urbanzssimo, says he, subita 
velut illati ruris imitatio. Something like a 
rural view was contrived amidst so much pol- 
ished composition. But the idea soon vanished, 
lineal walks immediately enveloped the slight 
scene, and names and inscriptions in box again 
succeeded to compensate for the daring introduc- 
tion of nature. 

In the paintings found at Herculaneum are a 
few traces of gardens, as may be seen in the 
second volume of the prints. They are small 
square enclosures formed by trellis-work and 
espaliers,* and regularly ornamented with vases, 
fountains, and careatides, elegantly symmetri- 
cal, and proper for the narrow spaces allotted 
to the garden of a house in a capital city. From 
such I would not banish those playful waters 
that refresh a sultry mansion in town, nor the 
neat trellis, which preserves its wooden verdure 
better than the natural greens exposed to dust. 
Those treillages in the gardens at Paris, partic- 
ularly on the Boulevard, have a gay and de- 
lightful effect. They form light corridors, and 
transpicuous arbors, through which the sun- 
beams play and checker the shade, set off the 
statues, vases, and flowers, that marry with their 

* At Warwick Castle is an ancient suit of arras, in 
which there is a garden exactly resembling these pic- 
tures of Herculaneum. 



244 ftbe (Barren 



gaudy hotels, and suit the gallant and idle 
society who paint the walks between their 
parterres, and realize the fantastic scenes of 
Watteau and Durfe. 

From what I have said, it appears how natu- 
rally and insensibly the idea of a kitchen-garden 
slid into that which has for so many ages been 
peculiarly termed a garden, and by our ances- 
tors in this country distinguished by the name 
of a pleasure-garden. A square piece of ground 
was originally parted off in early ages for the 
use of the family ; to exclude cattle and ascer- 
tain the property it was separated from the 
fields by a hedge. As pride and desire of pri- 
vacy increased, the enclosure was dignified by 
walls ; and in climes where fruits were not lav- 
ished by the ripening glow of nature and soil, 
fruit-trees were assisted and sheltered from sur- 
rounding winds by like expedients ; for the in- 
undations of luxuries which have swelled into 
general necessities have almost all taken their 
source from the simple fountain of reason. 

When the custom of making square gardens 
enclosed with walls was thus established, to the 
exclusion of nature and prospect,* pomp and 

* It was not uncommon, after the circumjacent coun- 
try had been shut out, to endeavor to recover it by raising 
large mounds of earth to peep over the walls of the 
garden. 






Iborace TiGlalpole 245 



solitude combined to call for something that 
might enrich and enliven the insipid and un- 
animated partition. Fountains, first invented 
for use, which grandeur loves to disguise and 
throw out of the question, received embellish- 
ments from costly marbles, and at last, to con- 
tradict utility, tossed their waste of waters into 
air in spouting columns. Art, in the hands 
of rude man, had at first been made a suc- 
cedaneum to nature ; in the hands of ostenta- 
tious wealth, it became the means of opposing 
nature ; and the more it traversed the inarch of 
the latter, the more nobility thought its power 
was demonstrated. Canals measured by the 
line were introduced in lieu of meandering 
streams, and terraces were hoisted aloft in 
opposition to the facile slopes that impercepti- 
bly unite the valley to the hill. Balustrades 
defended these precipitate and dangerous eleva- 
tions, and flights of steps rejoined them to the 
subjacent flat from which the terrace had been 
dug. Vases and sculpture were added to these 
unnecessary balconies, and statues furnished 
the lifeless spot with mimic representations of 
the excluded sons of men. Thus, difficulty and 
expense were the constituent parts of those 
sumptuous and selfish solitudes ; and every im- 
provement that was made was but a step farther 
from nature. The tricks of water- works to wet 



246 XLbc ©arOen 



the unwary, not to refresh the panting specta- 
tor, and parterres embroidered in patterns like 
a petticoat, were but the childish endeavors of 
fashion and novelty to reconcile greatness to 
what it had surfeited on. To crown these im- 
potent displays of false taste, the shears were 
applied to the lovely wildness of form with 
which nature has distinguished each various 
species of tree and shrub. The venerable oak, 
the romantic beech, the useful elm, even the 
aspiring circuit of the lime, the regular round 
of the chestnut, and the almost moulded orange- 
tree, were corrected by such fantastic admirers 
of symmetry. The compass and square were 
of more use in plantations than the nursery- 
man. The measured walk, the quincunx, and 
the eHoile imposed their unsatisfying sameness 
on every royal and noble garden. Trees were 
headed, and their sides pared away ; many 
French groves seem green chests set upon 
poles. Seats of marble, arbors, and summer- 
houses terminated every vista ; and symmetry, 
even where the space was too large to permit its 
being remarked at one view, was so essential, 
that, as Pope observed : 

" Each alley has a brother, 
And half the garden just reflects the other." 

Knots of flowers were more defeusibly subjected 



Iborace Walpole 247 

to the same regularity. Leisure, as Milton ex- 
pressed it, 

" In trim gardens took his pleasure." 

In the garden of Marshal de Biron, at Paris, 
consisting of fourteen acres, every walk is but- 
toned on each side by lines of flower-pots, 
which succeed in their seasons. When I saw 
it, there were nine thousand pots of asters, or 
la Reine Marguerite. 

We do not precisely know what our ancestors 
meant by a bower, it was probably an arbor ; 
sometimes it meant the whole frittered enclos- 
ure, and in one instance it certainly included a 
labyrinth. Rosamond's bower was indisputably 
of that kind, though, whether composed of walls 
or hedges, we cannot determine. A square and 
a round labyrinth were so capital ingredients of 
a garden formerly, that in Du Cerceau's archi- 
tecture, who lived in the time of Charles IX. 
and Henry III., there is scarce a ground-plot 
without one of each. The enchantment of an- 
tique appellations has consecrated a pleasing 
idea of a royal residence, of which we now 
regret the extinction. Havering in the Bower, 
the jointure of many dowager queens, conveys 
to us the notion of a romantic scene. 

In Kip's views of the seats of our nobility 
and gentry, we see the same tiresome and 



248 XLhc (Barren 



returning uniformity. Every house is ap- 
proached by two or three gardens, consisting 
perhaps of a gravel-walk and two grass- plats, 
or borders of flowers. Bach rises above the 
other by two or three steps, and as many walls 
and terraces ; and so many iron gates, that we 
recollect those ancient romances, in which 
every entrance was guarded by nymphs or 
dragons. At Lady Oxford's, at Piddletown, in 
Dorsetshire, there was, when my brother mar- 
ried, a double enclosure of thirteen gardens, 
each, I suppose, not much above a hundred 
yards square, with an enfilade of correspondent 
gates ; and before you arrived at these, you 
passed a narrow gut between two stone ter- 
races, that rose above your head, and which were 
crowned by a line of pyramidal yews. A bowl- 
ing-green was all the lawn admitted in those 
times ; a circular lake the extent of magnificence. 
Yet, though these and such preposterous in- 
conveniences prevailed from age to age, good 
sense in this country had perceived the want of 
something at once more grand and more natu- 
ral. These reflections, and the bounds set to 
the waste made by royal spoilers, gave origin to 
parks. They were contracted forests and ex- 
tended gardens. Hentzner says that, accord- 
ing to Rous of Warwick, the first park was that 
at Woodstock. If so, it might be the founda- 



Iborace Walpole 249 

tion of a legend that Henry II. secured his 
mistress in a labyrinth ; it was no doubt more 
difficult to find her in a park than in a palace, 
when the intricacy of the woods and various 
lodges buried in covert might conceal her 
actual habitation. 

It is more extraordinary that having so long 
ago stumbled on the principle of modern gar- 
dening, we should have persisted in retaining 
its reverse, symmetrical, and unnatural gardens. 
That parks were rare in other countries, Hentz- 
ner, who travelled over great part of Europe, 
leads us to suppose, by observing that they 
were common in England. In France they re- 
tain the name, but nothing is more different 
both in compass and disposition. Their parks 
are usually square or oblong enclosures, regu- 
larly planted with walks of chestnuts or limes, 
and generally every large town has one for its 
public recreation. They are exactly like Bur- 
ton's Court, at Chelsea College, and rarely 
larger. 

One man, one great man we had, on whom 
nor education nor custom could impose their 
prejudices ; who, on evil days though fallen, 
and with darkness and solitude compassed 
round, judged that the mistaken and fantastic 
ornaments he had seen in gardens were un- 
worthy of the Almighty hand that planted the 



250 Cbe (Barren 



delights of Paradise. He seems, with the pro- 
phetic eye of taste (as I have heard taste well 
defined), to have conceived, to have foreseen, 
modern gardening ; as L,ord Bacon announced 
the discoveries since made by experimental 
philosophy. The description of Eden is a 
warmer and more just picture of the present 
style than Claude Lorraine could have painted 
from Hagley or Stourhead. The first lines I 
shall quote exhibit Stourhead on a more mag- 
nificent scale : 

" Thro' Eden went a river large, 
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill 
Pass'd underneath ingulf 'd, for God had thrown 
That mountain as his garden-mound, high rais'd 
Upon the rapid current." 

Hagley seems pictured in what follows : 

" Which thro' veins 
Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn, 
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill 
Water' d the garden." 

What coloring, what freedom of pencil, what 
landscape in these lines : 

" From that sapphire fount the crisped brooks, 
Rolling on orient pearls and sands of gold, 
With mazy error under pendent shades 
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed 



Iborace Malpole 251 



Flow'rs worthy of Paradise, which not nice art 
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon 
Pour'd forth profuse on hill and dale and plain, 
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote 
The open field, and where the unpierced shade 
Imbrown'd the moontide bow'rs. Thus was this place 
A happy rural seat of various view.'''' 

Read this transporting description, paint to 
your mind the scenes that follow, contrast them 
with the savage but respectable terror with 
which the poet guards the bounds of his para- 
dise, fenced 

" with the champain head 
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides 
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, 
Access denied ; and overhead upgrew 
Insuperable height of loftiest shade, 
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, 
A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend, 
Shade above shade, a woody theatre 
Of stateliest view , " — 

and then recollect that the author of this 
sublime vision had never seen a glimpse of any 
thing like what he imagined, that his favorite 
ancients had dropped not a hint of such divine 
scenery, and that the conceits in Italian gardens, 
and Theobald's, and Nonsuch were the brightest 
originals that his memory could furnish. His 
intellectual eye saw a nobler plan, so little did 



252 Gbe (BarDen 



he suffer by the loss of sight. It sufficed him 
to have seen the materials with which he could 
work. The vigor of a boundless imagination 
told him how a plan might be disposed that 
would embellish nature and restore art to its 
proper office — the just improvement or imitation 
of it* 

It is necessary that the concurrent testimony 
of the age should swear to posterity that the 
description above quoted was written about half 
a century before the introduction of modern 
gardening, or our incredulous descendants will 
defraud the poet of half his glory by being per- 
suaded that he copied some garden he had seen, 
so minutely do his ideas correspond with the 
present standard. But what shall we say for 
that intervening half century which could read 
that plan and never attempt to put it in execu- 
tion ? 

Now let us turn to an admired writer posterior 
to Milton, and see how cold, how insipid, how 
tasteless is his account of what he pronounced 
a perfect garden. I speak not of his style, 
which it was not necessary for him to animate 
with the coloring and glow of poetry. It is his 
want of ideas, of imagination, of taste, that I 

* Since the above was written I have found Milton 
praised and Sir William Temple censured, on the same 
foundations, in a poem called " The Rise and Progress of 
the Present Taste in Planting," printed in 1767. 



Iborace Matpole 253 

censure when he dictated on a subject that is 
capable of all the graces that a knowledge of 
beautiful nature can bestow. Sir William Tem- 
ple was an excellent man, Milton a genius of 
the first order. 

We cannot wonder that Sir William declares 
in favor of parterres, fountains, and statues, as 
necessary to break the sameness of large grass- 
plats, which he thinks have an ill effect upon 
the eye, when he acknowledges that he dis- 
covers fancy in the gardens of Alcinous. Milton 
studied the ancients with equal enthusiasm but 
no bigotry, and had judgment to distinguish 
between the want of invention and the beauties 
of poetry. Compare his paradise with Homer's 
garden, both ascribed to a celestial design. For 
Sir William it is just to observe that his ideas 
centred in a fruit-garden. He had the honor of 
giving to his country many delicate fruits, and 
he thought of little else than disposing of them 
to the best advantage. Here is the passage I 
proposed to quote. It is long, but I need not 
make an apology to the reader for entertaining 
him with any other words instead of my own : 

" The best figure of a garden is either a square 
or an oblong, and either upon a flat or a descent ; 
they have all their beauties, but the best I es- 
teem an oblong upon a descent. The beauty, 
the air, the view, make amends for the expense, 



254 Zhe (Barfcen 



which is very great in finishing and support- 
ing the terrace-walks, in levelling the parterres, 
and in the stone stairs that are necessary from 
one to the other. 

"The perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw, 
either at home or abroad, was that of Moor 
Park in Hertfordshire, when I knew it about 
thirty years ago. It was made by the Countess 
of Bedford, esteemed among the greatest wits 
of her time, and celebrated by Doctor Donne ; 
and with very great care, excellent contrivance, 
and much cost ; but greater sums may be thrown 
away without effect or honor, if there want 
sense in proportion to money, or if nature be not 
followed, which I take to be the great rule in 
this, and perhaps in every thing else, as far as 
the conduct not only of our lives, but our gov- 
ernments." 

We shall see how natural that admired garden 
was. 

"Because I take* the garden I have named 

to have been in all kinds the most beautiful and 

perfect, at least in the figure and disposition, 

that I have ever seen, I will describe it for a 

model to those that meet with such a situation, 

and are above the regards of common expense. 

It lies on the side of a hill, upon which the 

* This garden seems to have been made after the plan 
laid down by Lord Bacon in his 46th Essay, to which, that 
I may not multiply quotations, I will refer the reader. 



Iborace llXHalpole 255 



house stands, but not very steep. The length 
of the house, where the best rooms and of most 
use or pleasure are, lies upon the breadth of 
the garden ; the great parlor opens into the 
middle of a terrace gravel-walk that lies even 
with it, and which may lie, as I remember, 
about three hundred paces long, and broad in 
proportion ; the border set with standard laurels 
and at large distances, which have the beauty 
of orange-trees out of flower and fruit. From 
this walk are three descents by many stone 
steps, in the middle and at each end, into a 
very large parterre. This is divided into quar- 
ters by gravel-walks, and adorned with two 
fountains and eight statues in the several quar- 
ters. At the end of the terrace-walk are two 
summer-houses, and the sides of the parterre 
are ranged with two large cloisters open to 
the garden, upon arches of stone, and ending 
with two other summer-houses even with the 
cloisters, which are paved with stone, and 
designed for walks of shade, there being none 
other in the whole parterre. Over these two 
cloisters are two terraces covered with lead and 
fenced with balusters :. and the passage into 
these airy walks is out of the two summer- 
houses at the end of the first terrace-walk. The 
cloister facing the south is covered with vines, 
and would have been proper for an orange- 



256 Zhc (Sarfcen 



house, and the other for myrtles or other more 
common greens, and had, I doubt not, been 
cast for that purpose, if this piece of gardening 
had been then in as much vogue as it is now. 

" From the middle of this parterre is a de- 
scent by man) r steps flying on each side of a 
grotto that lies between them, covered with 
lead and flat, into the lower garden, which is 
all fruit-trees ranged about the several quarters 
of a wilderness which is very shady. The walks 
here are all green, the grotto embellished with 
figures of shell rock-work, fountains, and water- 
works. If the hill had not ended with the 
lower garden, and the walls were not bounded 
by a common way that goes through the park, 
they might have added a third quarter of all 
greens ; but this want is supplied by a garden 
on the other side the house, which is all of that 
sort — very wild, shady, and adorned with rough 
rock-work and fountains. 

" This was Moor Park, when I was acquaint- 
ed with it, and the sweetest place I think that 
I have seen in my life, either before or since, 
at home or abroad." 

I will make no further remarks on this de- 
scription. Any man might design and build 
as sweet a garden, who had been born in and 
never stirred out of Holborn. It was not pe- 
culiar to Sir William Temple to think in that 



Iborace Malpolc 257 

manner. How many Frenchmen are there who 
have seen our gardens, and still prefer natural 
flights of steps and shady cloisters covered with 
lead? Le Nautre, the architect of the groves 
and grottos at Versailles, came hither on a 
mission to improve our taste. He planted St. 
James' and Greenwich parks — no great monu- 
ments of his invention. 

To do further j ustice , to Sir William Temple, 
I must not omit what he adds : 

" What I have said of the best forms of gar- 
dens is meant only of such as are in some sort 
regular, for there may be other forms wholly 
irregular, that may, for aught I know, have 
more beauty than any of the others ; but they 
must owe it to some extraordinary dispositions 
of nature in the seat, or some great race of 
fancy or judgment in the contrivance, which 
may reduce many disagreeing parts into some 
figure, which shall yet, upon the whole, be 
very agreeable. Something of this I have seen 
in some places, but heard more of it from 
others who have lived much among the Chinese, 
a people whose way of thinking seems to lie as 
wide of ours in Europe as their country does. 
Their greatest reach of imagination is employed 
in contriving figures, where the beauty shall be 
great and strike the eye, but without any order 
or disposition of parts that shall be commonly 

9 



258 Zbe <3arfcen 



or easily observed. And though we have hardly 
any notion of this sort of beauty, yet they have 
a particular word to express it, and where they 
find it hit their eye at first sight, they say the 
Sharawadgi is fine or is admirable, or any such 
expression of esteem, but I should hardly ad- 
vise any of these attempts in the figure of gar- 
dens among us. They are adventures of too 
hard achievement for any common hands, and 
though there may be more honor if they suc- 
ceed well, yet there is more dishonor if they 
fail, and it is twenty to one they will ; whereas 
in regular figures it is hard to make any great 
and remarkable faults. ' ' 

Fortunately, Kent and a few others were not 
quite so timid, or we might still be going up 
and down stairs in the open air. 

It is true we have heard much lately, as Sir 
William Temple did, of irregularity and imita- 
tions of nature in the gardens or grounds of the 
Chinese. The former is certainly true. They 
are as whimsically irregular as European gar- 
dens are formally uniform and varied ; but 
with regard to nature it seems as much avoided 
as in the squares and oblongs and straight lines 
of our ancestors. An artificial perpendicular 
rock starting out of a flat plain and connected 
with nothing, often pierced through in various 
places with oval hollows, has no more preten- 



Iborace Walpole 259 

sion to be deemed natural than a lineal terrace 
or a parterre. The late Mr. Joseph Spence, 
who had both taste and zeal for the present 
style, was so persuaded of the Chinese em- 
peror's pleasure-ground being laid out on prin- 
ciples resembling ours, that he translated and 
published, under the name of Sir Harry Beau- 
mont, a particular account of that enclosure 
from the collection of the letters of the Jesuits. 
I have looked it over, and except a determined 
irregularity, can find nothing in it that gives me 
any idea of attention being paid to nature. It 
is of vast circumference, and contains two hun- 
dred palaces, besides as many contiguous for 
the eunuchs, all gilt, painted, and varnished. 
There are raised hills from twenty to sixty feet 
high, streams and lakes, and one of the latter 
five miles round. These waters are passed by 
bridges, but even their bridges must not be 
straight — they serpentize as much as the rivu- 
lets, and are sometimes so long as to be fur- 
nished with resting-places, and begin and end 
with triumphal arches. Methinks a straight 
canal is as rational at least as a meandering 
bridge. The colonnades undulate in the same 
manner. In short, this pretty gaudy scene is 
the work of caprice and whim, and when we 
reflect on their buildings presents no image but 
that of unsubstantial tawdriness. Nor is this 



260 tTbe <3arben 



all. Within this fantastic paradise is a square 
town, each side a mile long. Here the eunuchs 
of the court, to entertain his imperial majesty 
with the bustle and business of the capital in 
which he resides, but which it is not of his 
dignity ever to see, act merchants and all sorts 
of trades, and even designedly exercise for his 
royal amusement every art of knavery that is 
practised under his auspicious government. 
Methinks this is the childish solace and repose 
of grandeur, not a retirement from affairs to 
the delights of rural life. Here, too, his ma- 
jesty plays at agriculture. There is a quartet 
set apart for that purpose. The eunuchs sow, 
reap, and carry in their harvest in the imperial 
presence, and his majesty returns to Pekin 
persuaded that he has been in the country. 

Having thus cleared my way by ascertaining 
what have been the ideas on gardening in all 
ages as far as we have materials to judge by, 
it remains to show to what degree Mr. Kent in- 
vented the new style, and what hints he had re- 
ceived to suggest and conduct his undertaking. 

We have seen what Moor Park was when 
pronounced a standard. But as no succeeding 
generation in an opulent and luxurious country 
contents itself with the perfection established 
by its ancestors, more perfect perfection was 
still sought, and improvements had gone on, 



Iborace Malpole 261 



till London and Wise had stocked our gardens 
with giants, animals, monsters,* coats-of-arms, 
and mottoes in yew, box, and holly. Absurd- 
ity could go no further, and the tide turned. 
Bridgman, the next fashionable designer of gar- 
dens, was far more chaste, and whether from good 
sense, or that the nation had been struck and 
reformed by the admirable paper in the Guar- 
dian, No. 173, he banished verdant sculpture, 
and did not even revert to the square precision 
of the foregoing age. He enlarged his plans, 
disdained to make every division tally to its 
opposite ; and though he still adhered much to 
straight walks with high clipped hedges, they 
were only his great lines, the rest he diversified 
by wilderness, and with loose groves of oak, 
though still within surrounding hedges. I have 
observed in the garden f at Gubbins, in Hert- 
fordshire, many detached thoughts that strong- 
ly indicate the dawn of modern taste. As his 
reformation gained footing he ventured further, 
and in the royal garden at Richmond dared to 

* On the piers of a garden gate, not far from Paris, I 
observed two very coquet sphinxes. These lady mon- 
sters had straw hats, gracefully smart on one side of 
their heads, and silken cloaks half veiling their necks- 
all executed in stone. 

t The seat of the late Sir Jeremy Sambroke. It had 
formerly belonged to I^ady More, mother-in-law of Sir 
Thomas More, and had been tyrannically wrenched 
from her by Henry VIII. on the execution of Sir 
Thomas, though not her son, and though her jointure 
from a former husband. 



262 Cbe <3arfcen 



introduce cultivated fields, and even morsels of 
a forest appearance, by the sides of those end- 
less and tiresome walks that stretched out of 
one into another without intermission. But 
this was not till other innovators had broken 
loose, too, from rigid symmetry. But the capi- 
tal stroke, the leading step to all that has 
followed, was (I believe the first thought was 
Bridgman's) the destruction of walls for boun- 
daries, and the invention of fosses — an attempt 
then deemed so astonishing that the common 
people called them Ha ! Ha's ! to express their 
surprise at finding a sudden and unperceived 
check to their walk. 

One of the first gardens planted in this simple, 
though still formal style, was my father's at 
Houghton. It was laid out by Mr. Byre, an 
imitator of Bridgman. It contains three and 
twenty acres, then reckoned a considerable 
portion. 

I call a sunk fence the leading step for these 
reasons : No sooner was this simple enchant- 
ment made, than levelling, mowing, and rolling 
followed. The contiguous ground of the park, 
without the sunk fence, was to be harmonized 
with the lawn within ; and the garden in its 
turn was to be set free from its prim regularity, 
that it might assort with the wilder country 
without. The sunk fence ascertained the 



Ifootace "Qiaalpole 263 

specific garden ; but that it might not draw 
too obvious a line of distinction between the 
neat and the rude, the contiguous out-lying 
parts came to be included in a kind of general 
design : and when nature was taken into the 
plan, under improvements, every step that was 
made pointed out new beauties and inspired 
new ideas. At that moment appeared Kent, 
painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, 
bold and opinionative enough to dare and to 
dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a 
great system from the twilight of imperfect 
essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all 
nature was a garden. He felt the delicious 
contrast of hill and valley changing imper- 
ceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of 
the gentle swell or concave swoop, and re- 
marked how loose groves crowned an easy 
eminence with happy ornament ; and while 
they called in the distant view between their 
graceful stems, removed and extended the 
perspective by delusive comparison. 

Thus the pencil of his imagination bestowed 
all the arts of landscape on the scenes he 
handled. The great principles on which he 
worked were perspective, and light and shade. 
Groups of trees broke too uniform or too ex- 
tensive a lawn ; evergreens and woods were 
opposed to the glare of the champaign ; and 



264 £be (Bar&en 



where the view was less fortunate, or so much 
exposed as to be beheld at once, he blotted out 
some parts by thick shades to divide it into 
variety, or to make the richest scene more 
enchanting by reserving it to a farther advance 
of the spectator's step. Thus selecting favorite 
objects and veiling deformities by screens of 
plantation, sometimes allowing the rudest waste 
to add its foil to the richest theatre, he realized 
the compositions of the greatest masters in 
painting. Where objects were wanting to ani- 
mate his horizon, his taste as an architect could 
bestow immediate termination. His buildings, 
his seats, his temples, were more the works of 
his pencil than of his compasses. We owe the 
restoration of Greece and the diffusion of archi- 
tecture to his skill in landscape. 

But of all the beauties he added to the face 
of this beautiful country none surpassed his 
management of water. Adieu to canals, circu- 
lar basins, and cascades tumbling down marble 
steps, that last absurd magnificence of Italian 
and French villas. The forced elevation of 
cataracts was no more. The gentle stream was 
taught to serpentize seemingly at its pleasure, 
and where discontinued by different levels its 
course appeared to be concealed by thickets 
properly interspersed, and glittered again at a 
distance where it might be supposed naturally 



Iborace Walpole 265 

to arrive. Its borders were smoothed, but pre- 
served their waving irregularity. A few trees 
scattered here and there on its edges sprinkled 
the tame bank that accompanied its meanders ; 
and when it disappeared among the hills, shades 
descending from the heights leaned towards its 
progress, and framed the distant point of light 
under which it was lost, as it turned aside to 
either hand of the blue horizon. 

Thus dealing in none but the colors of nature, 
and catching its most favorable features, men 
saw a new creation opening before their eyes. 
The living landscape was chastened or polished, 
not transformed. Freedom was given to the 
forms of trees ; they extended their branches 
unrestricted, and where any eminent oak or 
master beech had escaped maiming and sur- 
vived the forest, bush and bramble were re- 
moved, and all its honors were restored to dis- 
tinguish and shade the plain. Where the united 
plumage of an ancient wood extended wide its 
undulating canopy, and stood venerable in its 
darkness, Kent thinned the foremost ranks and 
left but so many detached and scattered trees as 
softened the approach of gloom, and blended 
a checkered light with the thus lengthened 
shadows of the remaining columns. 

Succeeding artists have added new master- 
strokes to these touches ; perhaps improved or 



Zbe <3arDen 



brought to perfection some that I have named. 
The introduction of foreign trees and plants, 
which we owe principally to Archibald, Duke 
of Argyle, contributed essentially to the rich- 
ness of coloring so peculiar to our modern 
landscape. The mixture of various greens, the 
contrast of forms between our forest-trees and 
the northern and West Indian firs and pines, are 
improvements more recent than Kent, or but 
little known to him. The weeping willow, and 
every florid shrub, each tree of delicate or bold 
leaf, are new tints in the composition of our 
gardens. The last century was certainly ac- 
quainted with many of those rare plants we now 
admire. The Weymouth pine has long been 
naturalized here ; the patriarch plant still exists 
at Longleat. The light and graceful acacia was 
known as early ; witness those ancient stems in 
the court of Bedford House in Bloomsbury 
Square; and in the Bishop of London's garden 
at Fulham are many exotics of very ancient 
date. I doubt therefore whether the difficulty 
of preserving them in a clime so foreign to 
their nature did not convince our ancestors of 
their inutility in general ; unless the shapeliness 
of the lime and horse-chestnut, which accorded 
so well with established regularity, and which 
thence and from their novelty grew in fashion, 



Iborace 7KHalpole 267 



did not occasion the neglect of the more curious 
plants. 

But just as the encomiums are that I have 
bestowed on Kent's discoveries, he was neither 
without assistance nor faults. Mr. Pope un- 
doubtedly contributed to form his taste. The 
design of the Prince of Wales' garden at Carlton 
House was evidently borrowed from the poet's 
at Twickenham. There was a little of affected 
modesty in the latter, when he said, of all his 
works he was most proud of his garden. And 
yet it was a singular effort of art and taste, to 
impress so much variety of scenery on a spot 
of five acres. The passing through the gloom 
from the grotto to the opening day, the retiring 
and again assembling shades, the dusky groves, 
the larger lawn, and the solemnity of the termi- 
nation at the cypresses that lead up to his 
mother's tomb, are managed with excellent 
judgment ; and though Lord Petersborough 
assisted him 

" To form his quincunx and to rank his vines," 

those were not the most pleasing ingredients 
of his little perspective. 

I do not know whether the disposition of the 
garden at Rousham, laid out for General Dor- 
mer, and in my opinion the most engaging of 



268 ftbe ©arfcen 




all Kent's works, was not planned on the model 
of Mr. Pope's, at least in the opening and re- 
tiring shades of Venus' vale. The whole is as 
elegant and antique as if the Emperor Julian 
had selected the most pleasing solitude about 
Daphne to enjoy a philosophic retirement. 

That Kent's ideas were but rarely great was 
in some measure owing to the novelty of his art. 
It would have been difficult to have transported 
the style of gardening at once from a few acres 
to tumbling of forests ; and though new fash- 
ions, like new religions (which are new fash- 
ions), often lead men to the most opposite ex- 
cesses, it could not be the case in gardening, 
where the experiments would have been so ex- 
pensive. Yet it is true, that the features 
in Kent's landscapes were seldom majestic. 
His clumps were puny, he aimed at immedi- 
ate effect, and planted not for futurity. One 
sees no large woods sketched out by his direc- 
tion. Nor are we yet entirely risen above a too 
great frequency of small clumps, especially in 
the elbows of serpentine rivers. How common 
to see three or four beeches, then as many 
larches, a third knot of cypresses, and a revo- 
lution of all three ! Kent's last designs were in 
a higher style, as his ideas opened on success. 
The north terrace at Claremont was much supe- 
rior to the rest of the garden. 



Iboracc Malpole 269 

A return of some particular thoughts was com- 
mon to him with other painters, and made his 
hand known. A small lake edged by a wind- 
ing bank with scattered trees that led to a seat 
at the head of the pond, was common to Clare- 
mont, Bsher, and others of his designs. At 
Esher, 

" Where Kent and Nature vied for Pelham's love," 

the prospects more than aided the painter's 
genius. They marked out the points where his 
art was necessary or not, but thence left his 
judgment in possession of all its glory. 

Having routed prof essed art, for the modern 
gardener exerts his talents to conceal his art, 
Keut, like other reformers, knew not how to 
stop at the just limits. He had followed nature, 
and imitated her so happily, that he began to 
think all her works were equally proper for im- 
itation. In Kensington Garden he planted deal 
trees, to give a greater air of truth to the scene : 
but he was soon laughed out of this excess. 
His ruling principle was, that nature abhors a 
straight line ; his mimics, for every genius has 
his apes, seemed to think that she could love 
nothing but what was crooked. Yet so many 
men of taste of all ranks devoted themselves to 
the new improvements, that it is surprising how 
much beauty has been struck out, with how 



270 tTbe (Barren 



few absurdities. Still in some lights the refor- 
mation seems to me to have been pushed too 
far. Though an avenue crossing a park or sep- 
arating a lawn, and intercepting views from the 
seat to which it leads, are capital faults, yet a 
great avenue * cut through woods, perhaps be- 
fore entering a park, has a noble air, and, 

" Like footmen running before coaches — 
To tell the inn what lord approaches," 

announces the habitation of some man of dis- 
tinction. 

In other places the total banishment of all 
particular neatness immediately about a house, 
which is frequently left gazing by itself in the 
middle of a park, is a defect. Sheltered and 
even close walks, in so very uncertain a climate 
as ours, are comforts ill exchanged for the few 
picturesque days that we enjoy ; and when- 
ever a family can purloin a warm and even 
something of an old-fashioned garden, from the 
landscape designed for them by the undertaker 

* Of this kind, one of the most noble is that of Stanstead, 
the seat of the Earl of Halifax, traversing an ancient 
wood for two miles, and bounded by the sea. The very 
extensive lawns at that seal , richly enclosed by venera- 
ble beech woods, and checkered by single beeches of 
vast size, particularly when you stand in the portico of 
the temple and survey the landscape that wastes itself 
in rivers of broken seas recall such exact pictures of 
Claude Lorraine, that it is difficult to conceive that he did 
not paint them from this very spot. 



Iborace TJQalpole 271 

in fashion, without interfering with the pic- 
ture, they will find satisfaction on those days 
that do not invite strangers to come and see 
their improvements. 

Fountains have with great reason been ban- 
ished from gardens as unnatural ; but it sur- 
prises me that they have not been allotted to 
their proper position — to cities, towns, and the 
courts of great houses, as proper accompani- 
ments to architecture, and as works of grandeur 
in themselves. Their decorations admit the 
utmost invention ; and when the waters are 
thrown up to different stages, and tumble over 
their border, nothing has a more imposing or a 
more refreshing sound. A palace demands its 
external graces and attributes, as much as a 
garden. Fountains and cypresses peculiarly 
become buildings ; and no man can have been 
at Rome, and seen the vast basins of marble 
dashed with perpetual cascades in the area of 
St. Peter's, without retaining an idea of taste and 
splendor. Those in the Piazza Navona are as 
useful as sublimely conceived. 

Grottos in this climate are recesses only 
to be looked at transiently. When they are 
regularly composed within of symmetry and 
architecture, as in Italy, they are only splendid 
improprieties. The most judiciously, indeed 
most fortunately, placed grotto, is that at Stour- 



272 Zbz (Barren 



head, where the river bursts from the urn of its 
god, and passes on its course through the cave. 

But it is not my business to lay down rules for 
gardens, but to give a history of them. A sys- 
tem of rules pushed to a great degree of refine- 
ment, and collected from the best examples and 
practice, has been lately given in a book entitled 
"Observations on Modern Gardening." The 
work is very ingeniously and carefully executed, 
and in point of utility rather exceeds than omits 
any necessary directions. The author will ex- 
cuse me if I think it a little excess, when he 
examines that rude and unappropriated scene 
of Matlocke Bath, and criticises nature for hav- 
ing bestowed on the rapid river Derwent too 
many cascades. 

How can this censure be brought home to gar- 
dening ? The management of rocks is a prov- 
ince can fall to few directors of gardens ; still in 
our distant provinces such a guide may be 
necessary. 

The author divides his subject into gardens, 
parks, farms, and ridings. I do not mean to find 
fault with this division. Directions are requi- 
site to each kind, and each has its department at 
many of the great scenes from whence he 
drew his observations. In the historic light, I 
distinguished them into .the garden that con- 
nects itself with a park, into the ornamented 



Iborace IHHalpole 273 



farm, and into the forest or savage garden. 
Kent, as I have shown, invented or established 
the first sort. Mr. Philip Southcote founded 
the second, or ferme ornee, of which is a very- 
just description in the author I have been quot- 
ing. The third I think he has not enough dis- 
tinguished. I mean that kind of Alpine scene, 
composed almost wholly of pines and firs, a few 
birch, and such trees as assimilate with a sav- 
age and mountainous country. Mr. Charles 
Hamilton, at Pain's Hill, in my opinion has 
given a perfect example of this mode in the ut- 
most boundary of his garden. All is great and 
foreign and rude ; the walks seem not designed, 
but cut through the wood of pines ; and the 
.style of the whole is so grand, and conducted 
with so serious an air of wild and uncultivated 
extent, that when you look down on this seem- 
ing forest you are amazed to find it contain a 
very few acres. In general, except as a screen 
to conceal some deformity, or as a shelter in 
winter, I am not fond of total plantations of 
evergreens. Firs in particular form a very un- 
graceful summit, all broken into angles. 

Sir Henry Englefield was one of the first im- 
provers on the new style, and selected with 
singular taste that chief beauty of all gardens 
— prospect and fortunate points of view. We tire 
of all the painter's art when it wants these 



274 Gbe (3ar£>en 



finishing touches. The fairest scenes, that de- 
pend upon themselves alone, weary when often 
seen. The Doric portico, the Palladian bridge, 
the Gothic ruin, the Chinese pagoda, that sur- 
prise the stranger, soon lose their charms to 
their surfeited master. The lake that floats the 
valley is still more lifeless, and its lord seldom 
enjoys his expense but when he shows it to a 
visitor. But the ornament whose merit soonest 
fades is the hermitage, or scene adapted to con- 
templation. It is almost comic to set aside a 
quarter of one's garden to be melancholy in. 
Prospect, animated prospect, is the theatre that 
will always be the most frequented. Prospects 
formerly were sacrificed to convenience and 
warmth. Thus Burleigh stands behind a hill, 
from the top of which it would command Stam- 
ford. Our ancestors, who resided the greatest 
part of the year at their seats, as others did two 
years together or more, had an eye to com- 
fort first, before expense. Their vast mansions 
received and harbored all the younger branches, 
the dowagers and ancient maiden aunts of the 
families ; and other families visited them for a 
month together. Their method of living is 
now totally changed, and yet the same superb 
palaces are still created, becoming a pompous 
solitude to the owner, and a transient enter- 
tainment to a few travellers. If any incident 



Iboracc Walpole 275 



abolishes or restrains the modern style of gar- 
dening, it will be this circumstance of solitari- 
ness. The greater the scene, the more distant it is 
probably from the capital, in the neighborhood 
of which land is too dear to admit considerable 
extent of property. Men tire of expense that 
is obvious to few spectators. Still, there is 
a more eminent danger that threatens the pres- 
ent, as it has ever done all taste — I mean the 
pursuit of variety. A modern French writer 
has in a very affected phrase given a just 
account of this, I will call it, distemper. He 
says : L y ennni du beau amhie le goilt singu- 
lier. The noble simplicity of the Augustan 
age was driven out by false taste. The gigan- 
tic, the puerile, the quaint, and at last the 
barbarous and the monkish, had each their suc- 
cessive admirers. Music has been improved till 
it is a science of tricks and sleight-of-hand ; the 
sober greatness of Titian is lost, and painting 
since Carlo Maratti has little more relief than 
Indian paper. Borromini twisted and curled 
architecture, as if it was subject to the change 
of fashions like a head of hair. If we once lose 
sight of the propriety of landscape in our gar- 
dens, we shall wander into all the fantastic 
sharawadgis of the Chinese. We have dis- 
covered the point of perfection. We have given 
the true model of gardening to the world. Let 



276 



tlbe (Barfcen 



other countries mimic or corrupt our taste ; but 
let it reign here on its verdant throne, original 
by its elegant simplicity, and proud of no other 
art than that of softening nature's harshnesses 
and copying her graceful touch. 

The ingenious author of the "Observations 
on Modern Gardening" is, I think, too rigid 
when he condemns some deceptions because 
they have been often used. If those decep- 
tions, as a feigned steeple of a distant church, 
or an unreal bridge to disguise the termination 
of water, were intended only to surprise, they 
were indeed tricks that would not bear repe- 
tition ; but being intended to improve the 
landscape, are no more to be condemned be- 
cause common, than they would be if employed 
by a painter in the composition of a picture. 
Ought one man's garden to be deprived of a 
happy object, because that object has been 
employed by another? The more we exact 
novelty, the sooner our taste will be vitiated. 
Situations are everywhere so various that there 
never can be a sameness, while the disposition 
of the ground is studied and followed, and every 
incident of view turned to advantage. 

In the meantime, how rich, how gay, how 
picturesque the face of the country ! The demo- 
lition of walls laying open each improvement, 
every journey is made through a succession of 



Ifoorace THHalpoIe 277 



pictures ; and even where taste is wanting in the 
spot improved, the general view is embellished 
by variety. If no relapse to barbarism, formal- 
ity, and seclusion is made, what landscapes will 
dignify every quarter of our island, where the 
daily plantations that are making have attained 
venerable maturity ! A specimen of what our 
gardens will be may be seen at Petworth, where 
the portion of the park nearest the house has 
been allotted to the modern style. It is a gar- 
den of oaks two hundred years old. If there is 
a fault in so august a fragment of improved 
nature, it is that the size of the trees is out of 
all proportion to the shrubs and accompani- 
ments. In truth, shrubs should not only be 
reserved for particular spots and home delight, 
but are past their beauty in less than twenty 
years. 

Enough has been done to establish such a 
school of landscape as cannot be found on the 
rest of the globe. If we have the seeds of a 
Claude or a Gaspar amongst us, he must come 
forth. If wood, water, groves, valleys, glades, 
can inspire or poet or painter, this is the coun- 
try, this is the age to produce them. The 
flocks, the herds, that are now admitted into, 
now graze on the borders of, our cultivated 
plains, are ready before the painter's eyes, and 
group themselves to animate his picture. One 



278 abe Garden 



misfortune, in truth, there is, that throws a 
difficulty on the artist. A principal beauty in 
our gardens is the lawn and smoothness of 
turf; in a picture it becomes a dead and uni- 
form spot, incapable of chiaroscuro, and to be 
broken insipidly by children, dogs, and other 
unmeaning figures. 

Since we have been familiarized to the study 
of landscape we hear less of what delighted our 
sportsmen-ancestors — a fine open country. Wilt- 
shire, Dorsetshire, and such ocean-like extents, 
were formerly preferred to the rich blue pros- 
pects of Kent, to the Thames-watered views in 
Berkshire, and to the magnificent scale of na- 
ture in Yorkshire. An open country is but a can- 
vas on which a landscape might be designed. 

It was fortunate for the country and Mr. Kent 
that he was succeeded by a very able master ; 
and did living artists come within my plan, I 
should be glad to do justice to Mr. Brown ; but 
he may be a gainer by being reserved for some 
abler pen. 

In general it is probably true, that the pos- 
sessor, if he has any taste, must be the best 
designer of his own improvements. He sees 
his situation in all seasons of the year, at all 
times of the day. He knows where beauty will 
not clash with convenience, and observes in 
his silent walks, or accidental rides, a thousand 



Iborace Hdalpole 279 

hints that must escape a person who in a few 
days sketches out a pretty picture, but has not 
had leisure to examine the details and relations 
of every part. 

Truth, which, after the opposition given to most 
revolutions, preponderates at last, will probably 
not carry our style of garden into general use 
on the Continent. The expense is only suited 
to the opulence of a free country, where emula- 
tion reigns among many independent particu- 
lars. The keeping of our grounds is an obstacle, 
as well as the cost of the first formation. A flat 
country, like Holland, is incapable of land- 
scape. In France and Italy the nobility do not 
reside much, and make small expense at their 
villas. I should think the little princes of 
Germany, who spare no profusion on their 
palaces and country-houses, most likely to be 
our imitators ; especially as their country and 
climate bears in many parts resemblance to 
ours. In France, and still less in Italy, they 
could with difficulty attain that verdure which 
the humidity of our clime bestows as the 
groundwork of our improvements. As great 
an obstacle in France is the embargo laid on 
the growth of their trees : as after a certain age, 
when they would rise to bulk, they are liable to 
be marked by the crown's surveyors as royal 
timber, it is a curiosity to see an old tree. A 



28o £be (Barren 



landscape and a crown surveyor are incom- 
patible. 

I have thus brought down to the conclusion 
of the last reign (the period I had marked to 
this work) the history of our arts and artists, 
from the earliest era in which we can be said to 
have had either. Though there have been only 
gleams of light and flashes of genius, rather 
than progressive improvements or nourishing 
schools, the inequality and insufficiency of the 
execution have flowed more from my own de- 
fects than from those of the subject. The 
merits of the work, if it has any, are owing to 
the indefatigable industry of Mr. Vertue in 
amassing all possible materials. As my task is 
finished, it will, I hope, at least excite others to 
collect and preserve notices and anecdotes for 
some future continuator. The era promises to 
furnish a nobler harvest. Our exhibitions, and 
the institution of a Royal Academy, inspire the 
artists with emulation, and recommend them 
to employment. The public examines and rea- 
sons on their works, and spectators by degrees 
become judges. Nor are persons of the first 
rank mere patrons. Lord Harcourt's etchings 
are superior in boldness and freedom of stroke 
to any thing we have seen from established 
artists. Gardening and architecture owe as 
much to the nobility and to men of fortune as 



Ifoorace THHalpole 281 

to the professors. I need but name General 
Conway's rustic bridge, at Park Place, of which 
every stone was placed by his own direction in 
one of the most beautiful scenes in nature ; and 
the theatric staircase designed and just erected 
by Mr. Chute, at his seat of the Vine in Hamp- 
shire. If a model is sought of the most perfect 
taste in architecture, where grace softens dig- 
nity, and lightness attempers magnificence; 
where proportion removes every part from 
peculiar observation, and delicacy of execution 
recalls every part to notice ; where the position 
is most happy, and even the color of the stone 
the most harmonious, the virtuoso should be 
directed to the new front* of Wentworth 
Castle, — the result of the same elegant judg- 
ment that had before distributed so many 
beauties over that domain, and called from 
wood, water, hills, prospects, and buildings, a 
compendium of picturesque nature, improved 
by the chastity of art. Such an era will de- 
mand a better historian. With pleasure, there- 
fore, I resign my pen, presuming to recommend 
nothing to my successor, but to observe a strict 
impartiality. 
August 2, 1770. 

* The old front, still extant, was erected by Thomas 
Wentworth, late Karl of Stafford ; the new one was 
entirely designed by the present Karl William himself. 




JOHN EVELYN. 



OF FENCES AND QUICKSETS. 



From " Silva." * 



OUR main plantation is now finished, and 
our forest adorned with a just variety. 
But what is yet all this labor, but loss of time 
and irreparable expense, unless our young and 
(as yet) tender plants be sufficiently guarded 
with munitions from all external injuries? For, 
as old Tusser, 

" If cattle or coney may enter to crop, 
Young oak is in danger of losing his top. " 

But with something of a more polished style, 
though to the same purpose, the best of poets : 

TexendcE sepes etiam, et pecus onine tenendum est : 
PrcBcipue dum frons tenera, imprudensque laborum : 

* A discourse delivered before the Ro3^al Society on the 
15th of October, 1662. The notes to this selection are 
tnose appended to the edition of 1777. 



John J£velvn 283 



Cut, super indignas hyemes, solemque potentem , 
Sylvestres uri assidue, capreceque sequaces 
Illudunt ; pascuntur oves, avid&que juvencce. 
Frigora nee tantum cana concreta pruina, 
Aut gravis incumbens scoptdis arentibus cestas ; 
Quantum illi nocuere greges, durique venenum 
Dentis, et admorso signata in stirpe cicatrix. 

— George ii. 

" Guard, too, from cattle thy new planted ground, 
And infant vines that ill can bear a wound : 
For not alone by winter's chilling frost, 
Or summer's scorching beam the young are lost ; 
But the wild buffaloes and greedy cows, 
And goats and sportive kids the branches browze ; 
Not piercing colds, nor Sirius' beams that beat 
On the parched hills, and split their tops with heat, 
So deeply injure, as the nibbling flocks, 
That wound with venom'd teeth the tender, fearful 
stocks." 



The reason that so many complain of the im- 
prosperous condition of their woodlands and 
plantations of this kind, proceeds from this 
neglect ; though, sheep excepted, there is no 
employment whatsoever incident to the farmer, 
which requires less expense to gratify his ex- 
pectations ; one diligent and skilful man will 
govern five hundred acres. But if through any 
accident a beast shall break into his master's 
field, or the wicked hunter make a gap for 
his dogs and horses, what a clamor is there 



284 



Gfoe <3arDen 



made for the disturbance of a year's crop at 
most in a little corn ! whilst abandoning his 
young woods all this time, and perhaps many 
years, to the venomous bitings and treading 
of cattle, and other like injuries, for want of 
due care, the detriment is many times irrepar- 
able, young trees once cropped hardly ever 
recovering. It is the bane of all our most hope- 
ful timber. 

But shall I provoke you by an instance ? A 
kinsman of mine has a wood of more than sixty 
years' standing. It was, before he purchased it, 
exposed and abandoned to the cattle for divers 
years. Some of the outward skirts were nothing 
save shrubs and miserable starvelings ; yet still 
the place was disposed to grow woody, but by 
this neglect continually suppressed. The in- 
dustrious gentleman fenced in some acres of 
this, and cut all close to the ground ; and it is 
come in eight or nine years to be better worth 
than the wood of sixty, and will, in time, prove 
most incomparable timber ; whilst the other 
part, so many years advanced, shall never re- 
cover : and all this from no other cause than 
preserving it fenced. Judge then by this, how 
our woods come to be so decried ! Are five 
hundred sheep worthy the care of a shepherd ? 
And are not five thousand oaks worth the fen- 
cing, and the inspection of a hayward ? 



5obn Bvelgn 285 



£t dubitant homines severe, atque impendere curam f 

—Georg., ii. 

" And shall men doubt to plant, and careful be ? " 

Let us therefore shut up what we have thus labo- 
riously planted, with some good quickset hedge. 

THE HAWTHORN. 

The hawthorn * is raised off seeds ; but then 
it must not be with despair because sometimes 
you do not see them peep the first year ; for 
the haw, and many other seeds, being invested 
with a very hard integument, will now and then 
suffer imprisonment two whole years under the 



* The hawthorn, of all other thorns, is the best calcu- 
lated for forming a good fence ; and in all new enclosures 
is solely applied to that purpose. The plants should, at 
least, be three years old, with good roots, and put down 
in single rows, allowing four inches between each plant. 
Such a hedge, if properly attended to, will in six years 
be proof against sheep and cattle ; but if neglected for 
the first two years, especially if the land be poor, much 
art will be required to form it afterwards into a good 
fence. 

Quickset hedges are of great antiquity. It appears 
from Homer that, when Ulysses returned to his father, 
Laertes, the good old man, had sent his servants into 
the woods to gather young thorns, and was occupied 
himself in preparing ground to receive them.— Odyssey, 
lib. xxiv. Varfo calls this sort of fence, Tutela nat- 
uralis et viva. And Columella prefers it before the struc- 
tile one, or dead hedge, as being more lasting and less 
expensive. Vetustissimi auctores vivam sepem structih 
prcztulerunt, quia non solum minorem impensatn desider- 
arei, verum etiam diuturnior immensis iemporibus per- 
maneret. — De R. R., lib. xi. 



286 £be ©aroen 



earth ; and our impatience at this does often 
frustrate the resurrection of divers seeds of this 
nature, so that we frequently dig up and dis- 
turb the beds where they have been sown, in 
despair, before they have gone their full time, 
which is also the reason of a very popular mis- 
take in other seeds, especially that of the holly, 
concerning which there goes a tradition, that 
they will not sprout till they be passed through 
the maw of a thrush. They come up very well 
off the berries, treated as I have showed in 
book I., chap, xxi., and with patience; for 
as I affirmed, they will sleep sometimes two 
entire years in their graves ; as will also the 
seeds of yew, sloe, Phillyrea angustifolia, and 
sundry others, whose shells are very hard about 
the small kernels ; but which is wonderfully 
facilitated by being, as we directed, prepared in 
beds, and magazines of earth or sand, for a 
competent time, and then committed to the 
ground before the full in March ; by which 
season they will be chitting, and especially take 
root. Others bury them deep in the ground all 
winter, and sow them in February. And thus I 
have been told of a gentleman who has con- 
siderably improved his revenue, by sowing 
haws only, and raising nurseries of quicksets, 
which he sells by the hundred far and near ; 
this is a commendable industry. 



$obn JEvelyn 287 

But Columella has another expedient for the 
raising of our spinetum, by rubbing the now 
mature hips and haws, ashen-keys, etc., into 
the crevices of bass-ropes, or wisps of straw, and 
then burying them in a trench. Whether way 
you attempt it, they must (so soon as they 
peep, and as long as they require it) be sedu- 
lously cleansed of the weeds ; which, if in beds 
for transplantation, had need be, at the least, 
three or four years ; by which time even your 
seedlings will be of stature fit to remove. For I 
do by no means approve of the vulgar prema- 
ture planting of sets, as is generally used 
throughout England ; which is to take such 
only as are the very smallest, and so to crowd 
them into three or four files, which are both 
egregious mistakes. 

Whereas it is found by constant experience, 
that plants as big as one's thumb, set in the 
posture, and at the distance which we spake of 
in the hornbeam— that is, almost perpendicular, 
(not altogether, because the rain should not get 
in betwixt the rind and wood), and single, or at 
most not exceeding a double row, do prosper 
infinitely, and much outstrip the densest and 
closest ranges of our trifling sets which make 
but weak shoots, and whose roots do but hinder 
each other, and for being couched in that pos- 
ture, on the sides of banks and fences (espe- 



288 "Gbe <3arfcen 



cially where the earth is not very tenacious), 
are bared of the mould which should entertain 
them, by that time the rains and storms of one 
winter have passed over them. In Holland 
and Flanders (where they have the goodliest 
hedges of this kind about the counterscarps of 
their invincible fortifications, to the great secu- 
rity of their musketeers upon occasion) they 
plant them according to my description, and 
raise fences so speedily, and so impenetrable, 
that our best are not to enter into the compari- 
son. Yet that I may not be wanting to direct 
such as either affect the other way, or whose 
grounds may require some bank of earth, as or- 
dinarily the verges of copses and other enclos- 
ures do, you shall by line cast up your foss of 
about three feet broad, and about the same 
depth, provided your mould hold out ; begin- 
ning first to turn the turf, upon which be care- 
ful to lay some of the best earth to bed your 
quick in, and there lay or set the plants, two in 
a foot space is sufficient ; being diligent to 
procure such as are fresh- gathered, straight, 
smooth, and well-rooted ; adding now and then, 
at equal spaces of twenty or thirty feet, a young 
oakling or elm-sucker, ash, or the like, which 
will come in time, especially in plain countries, 
to be ornamental standards, and good timber. 
If you will needs multiply your rows, a foot, or 



5obn Bvelgn 289 



somewhat less, above that, upon more congested 
mould, plant another rank of sets, so as to point 
just in the middle of the vacuities of the first, 
which I conceive enough. This is but for the 
single foss ; but if you would fortify it to the 
purpose, do as much on the other side, of the 
same depth, height, and planting ; and then, 
last of all, cap the top in pyramis with the worst, 
or bottom of the ditch. Some, if the mould be 
good, plant a row or two on the hedge, or very 
crest of the mound, which ought to be a little 
flattened. Here also many set their dry hedge ; 
for hedges must be hedged till they are able to 
defend and shade their under plantation, and I 
cannot reprove it ; but great care is to be had 
in this work, that the main bank be well footed, 
and not made with too sudden a declivity, 
which is subject to fall in after frosts and wet 
weather, and this is good husbandry for moist 
grounds ; but where the land lies high, and is 
hot and gravelly, I prefer the lower fencing ; 
which, though even with the area itself, may be 
protected with stakes and a dry hedge on the 
foss side, the distance competent, and to very 
good purposes of educating more frequent tim- 
ber amongst the rows. 

Your hedge being yet young should be con- 
stantly weeded two or three years, especially 
before mid-summer, of brambles, the great dock, 

10 



290 Gbe (BarDen 






thistle, etc., though some admit not of this 
work till after Michaelmas, for reasons that I 
approve not. It has been the practice of Here- 
fordshire, in the plantation of quickset hedges, 
to plant a crab-stock at every twenty feet dis- 
tance ; and this they observe so religiously, as 
if they had been under some rigorous statute 
requiring it. And by this means they were pro- 
vided in a short time with all the advantages 
for the gramng of fruit amongst them, which 
does highly recompense their industry. Some 
cut their sets at three years' growth, even to the 
very ground, and find that in a year or two they 
will have shot as much as in the seven, had 
they been let alone. 

When your hedge is now of near six years' 
stature, plash it about February or October ; 
but this is the work of a very dexterous and 
skilful husbandman, and for which our honest 
countryman, Mr. Markham, gives excellent 
directions ; only I approve not so well of his 
deep cutting the stems, if it be possible to bend 
them, having suffered in something of that 
kind. It is almost incredible to what perfec- 
tion some have laid these hedges by the rural 
way of plashing, better than by clipping ; yet 
may both be used for ornament, as where they 
are planted about our garden fences, and fields 
near the mansion. In Scotland, by tying the 



$obn JEvelgn 291 



young shoots with bands of hay, they make 
the stems grow so very close together, as that 
it encloseth rabbits in warrens instead of pales ; 
and for this robust use we shall prefer the black 
thorn ; the extravagant suckers, which are apt 
to rise at a distance from the hedge line, being 
sedulously extirpated, that the rest may grow 
the stronger and thicker. 

And now since I did mention it, and that 
most I find do greatly affect the vulgar way 
of quicking (that .this our discourse being in 
nothing deficient), we will in brief give it you 
again after George Markham's description, be- 
cause it is the best and most accurate, although 
much resembling our former direction, of which 
it seems but a repetition, till he comes to the 
plashing. In ground which is more dry than 
wet (for watery places it abhors), plant your 
quick thus : Let the first rows of sets be placed 
in a trench of about half a foot deep, even with 
the top of your ditch, in somewhat a sloping or 
inclining posture ; then, having raised your bank 
near a foot upon them, plant another row, so as 
their tops may just peep out over the middle of 
the spaces of your first row. These covered 
again to the height or thickness of the other, 
place a third rank opposite to the first, and then 
finish your bank to its intended height. The 
distances of the plants should not be above one 



292 Zhe (Barren 



foot ; and the season to do the work in may be 
from the entry of February till the end of 
March, or else in September to the beginning 
of December. When this is finished, yon must 
guard both the top of your bank, and outmost 
verge of your ditch, with a sufficient dry hedge, 
interwoven from stake to stake into the earth, 
which commonly they do on the bank to secure 
your quick from the spoil of cattle. And then, 
being careful to repair such as decay, or do not 
spring, by supplying the dead and trimming 
the rest, you shall, after three years' growth, 
sprinkle some trees amongst them, such as oak, 
beech, ash, maple, fruit, and the like ; which, 
being drawn young out of your nurseries, may 
be very easily inserted. 

I am not, in the meantime, ignorant of what 
is said against the scattering these masts and 
keys among our fences ; which grown, overtop 
the subnascent hedge, and prejudice it with 
their shade and drip. But this might be pre- 
vented by planting hollies, proof against these 
impediments, in the line or trench where you 
would raise standards, as far as they usually 
spread in many years, and which, if placed at 
good distances, how close soever to the stem, 
would, besides their stout defence, prove a won- 
drous decoration to large and ample enclosures. 
But to resume our former work. That which 



$obn Evelyn 293 



we affirmed to require the greatest dexterity, is 
the artificial plashing of our hedge, when it is 
arrived at a six or seven years' head ; though 
some stay till the tenth, or longer. In Febru- 
ary, therefore, or October, with a very sharp 
handbill cut away all superfluous sprays and 
stragglers, which may hinder your progress and 
are useless. Then searching out the principal 
stems, with a keen and light hatchet cut them 
slantwise, close to the ground, hardly three 
quarters through, or rather so far only as till 
you can make them comply handsomely, which 
is your best direction, lest you rift the stem, and 
so lay it from your sloping as you go, folding in 
the lesser branches which spring from them ; 
and ever within five or six feet distance, where 
you find an upright set (cutting off only the 
top to the height of your intended hedge), let it 
stand as a stake to fortify your work, and to re- 
ceive the twinings of those branches about it. 
Lastly, at the top (which should be about five 
feet above ground), take the longest, most slen- 
der, and flexible twigs which you reserved, and 
(being cut as the former, where need requires) 
bind in the extremities of all the rest ; and thus 
your work is finished. This being done very 
close and thick, makes an impregnable hedge 
in a few years ; for it may be repeated as you 
see occasion ; and what you so cut away will 



294 Gbe (Sarfcen 



aung 
"id 
10 

! 



help to make your dry hedges for your young 
plantations, or be profitable for the oven, and 
make good bavin. There are some yet who 
would have no stakes cut from the trees, save 
here and there one, so as to leave half the head 
naked, and the other standing ; but the over- 
hanging boughs will kill what is under them, 
and ruin the tree, so pernicious is this half- 
topping ; let this be a total amputation for a 
new and lusty spring. There is nothing more 
prejudicial to subnascent young trees than, 
when newly trimmed and pruned, to have their 
(as yet raw) wounds poisoned with continual 
dripping, as is well observed by Mr. Nourse ; 
but this is meant of repairing decayed hedges. 
For stakes in the above work, oak is to be pre- 
ferred, though some will use elder, but it is not 
good, or the blackthorn and crab-tree ; in moor- 
ish ground with}', ash, maple, and hazel, but 
not lasting, driven well in at every yard of 
interval, both before and after they are bound, 
till they have taken the hard earth, and are 
very fast ; and even your plashed hedges need 
some small thorns to be laid over to protect the 
spring from cattle and sheep till they are some- 
what fortified, and the doubler the winding is 
lodged the better, which should be beaten, and 
forced down together with the stakes as equally 
as may be. Note that in sloping your windings, 



$ohn JEvelvn 295 



if it be too low done, as very usually, it fre- 
quently mortifies the tops ; therefore it ought 
to be so bent as it may not impede the mount- 
ing of the sap. If the plash be of a great and 
extraordinary age, wind it at the nether boughs 
altogether, and cutting the sets as directed, 
permit it rather to hang downwards a little 
than rise too forwards ; and then twist the 
branches into the work, leaving a set free and 
unconstrained at every yard space, besides such 
as will serve for stakes, abated to about five feet 
in length (which is a competent stature for a 
hedge), and so let it stand. One shall often 
find in this work, especially in old neglected 
hedges, some great trees or stubs that com- 
monly make gaps for cattle ; such should be 
cut so near the earth as till you can lay them 
thwart, that the top of one may rest on the root 
or stub of the other, as far as they extend, stop- 
ping the cavities with its boughs and branches ; 
and thus hedges, which seem to consist but only 
of scrubby trees and stumps, may be reduced to 
a tolerable fence ; but in case it be superannu- 
ated and very old, it is advisable to stub all up, 
being quite renewed and well guarded. We 
have been the longer on these descriptions, 
because it is of main importance, and that so 
few husbandmen are so perfectly skilled in it ; 
but he that would be more fully satisfied, I 



296 XLbc (Barren 



would have him consult Mr. Cook, chapter 
xxxii., or rather, instar omnium, what I can- 
not, without injury to the public and ingratitude 
to the persons who do me the honor of impart- 
ing to me their experiences, but freely com- 
municate. 

The root of an old thorn is excellent both for 
boxes and combs, and is curiously and naturally 
wrought. I have read that they made ribs to 
some small boats or vessels with the white- 
thorn ; and it is certain that if they were plant- 
ed single, and in standards, where they might 
be safe, they would rise into large-bodied trees 
in time, and be of excellent use for the turner, 
not inferior to box. It was accounted among 
the fortunate trees, and therefore used in fasces 
nuptiaricm, since the jolly shepherds carried the 
white-thorn at the rape of the Sabines. 

The distilled water, and stone, or kernels of 
the haw reduced to powder, is generally agreed 
to be sovereign against the stone. The black 
crab, rightly seasoned and treated, is famous 
for walking-staves, and, if overgrown, is used in 
mill-work ; yea, and for rafters of great ships. 
Here we owe due eulogy to the industry of the 
late Lord Shaftesbury, who has taught us to 
make such enclosures of crab-stocks only, 
planted close to one another, as there is noth- 
ing more impregnable or becoming ; or you 



5obn iSvelyn 297 



may sow cider-kernels in a rill, and fence it for 
a while with a double dry hedge, not only for a 
sudden and beautiful, but a very profitable, en- 
closure ; because, amongst other benefits, they 
will yield you cider-fruit in abundance. But 
in Devonshire they build two walls with their 
stones, setting them edgeways, two, and then 
one between ; and so as it rises, fill the interval, 
or coffer, with earth (the breadth and height as 
you please), continuing the stonework and 
filling ; and as you work, beating in the stones 
flat to the sides, they are made to stick ever- 
lastingly. This is absolutely the neatest, most 
saving, and profitable fencing imaginable, where 
slaty stones are in any abundance ; and it be- 
comes not only the most secure to the lands, 
but the best for cattle, to lie warm under the 
walls ; whilst other hedges, be they ever so 
thick, admit of some cold winds in winter-time 
when the leaves are off. Upon these banks 
they plant not only quicksets, but even timber- 
trees, which exceedingly thrive, being out of 
all danger. 

THE PYRACANTHA AND PALJURUS. 

The Pyracantka, Paliurus, * and like pre- 
ciouser sorts of thorn and robust evergreens 

* The Paliurus is supposed to be the plant that com- 
posed the crown that was placed upon the head of 



298 Zbc (Barren 



adorned with caralin berries, might easily be 
propagated by seeds, layers, or cuttings, into 
plenty sufficient to store even these vulgar uses, 
were men industrious ; and then how beautiful 
and sweet would the environs of our fields be ! 
for there are none of the spinous shrubs more 
hardy, none that make a more glorious show, 
nor fitter for our defence, competently armed, 
especially the Rhamnus, which I therefore join 
to the Oxyacanthd) for its terrible and almost 
irresistible spines, able almost to pierce a coat of 
mail ; and for this made use of by the malicious 
Jews to crown the sacred temples of our 
Blessed Saviour, and is yet preserved among the 

Christ at his crucifixion ; but Dr. Haselquist, who had 
great opportunities of examining the plants of the Holy 
Land, is of opinion that it was a species of Zizyphus, 
which grows in great plenty in the neighborhood of 
Jerusalem. It is a very thorny plant, and is called by 
Linnaeus, Rhamnus aculeis getninatis rectis, foliis ovatis, 
Sp. PI. 282. The learned Dr. Pearce, late Lord Bishop of 
Rochester, sees the whole of this transaction in a very 
different light. And as his own words will best explain 
his opinion, I shall here transcribe them from his most 
excellent work, entitled " A Commentary upon the 
Four Evangelists." 

" The aKavdojv may as well be the plural genitive case 
of the word axai-fluj; as of aKavOr] ; if of the latter, it is 
rightly translated of (horns, but the former word signi- 
fies what we call bear's-foot, and the French branche 
ursine. This is not of the thorny kind of plants, but is 
soft and smooth. Virgil calls it ?nollis acanthus (Kcl. , iii. , 
45, andGeorg., iv., 137) ; so does Pliny, Sec. Fpist., v., 6 ; 
and Pliny the elder, in his Nat. Hist., xxii., 22 (p. 277, 
Fdit. Hard .fob), says that it is Itzvis, smooth, and that it 
is one of those plants which are cultivated in gardens. I 
have somewhere read (but cannot at present recollect 
where) that this soft and smooth herb was very common 



3obn Evelyn 290 



most venerable relics in Sainte Chapelle at 
Paris, as is pretended by the devotees, etc., 
and hence has the tree (for it sometimes 
exceeds a shrub) the name of Christ's thorn. 
Thus might barberries now and then be also 
inserted among our hedges, which with the 
hips, haws, and cornel-berries, do well in 
light lands, and should rather be planted to 
the south than north of west, as usually we 
observe them. 

Some, as w T e noted, mingle their very hedges 
with oaklings, ash, and fruit-trees, sown or 
planted, and it is a laudable improvement ; 
though others do rather recommend to us sets of 

in and about Jerusalem. I find nothing - in the New 
Testament said concerning- this crown which Pilate's 
soldiers put upon the head of Jesus, to incline one 
to think that it was made of thorns, and intended (as is 
usually supposed) to put him to pain. The reed put into 
his hand, and the scarlet robe on his back, were only 
meant as marks of mockery and contempt. One may 
also reasonably judge by the soldiers being said to plait 
this crown, that it was not composed of such twigs and 
leaves as were of a thorny nature. I do not find that it is 
mentioned by any of the primitive Christian writers as 
an instance of the cruelty used towards our Saviour be- 
fore he was led to his crucifixion, till the time of Tertul- 
lian, who lived after Jesus' death at the distance of 
about one hundred and sixty years. He indeed seems to 
have understood a<av0^v in the sense of thorns, and says, 
De Coron. Milit., sect. xiv. (Edit. Pomel. Franck. 1597), 
quale, oro te, Jesus Christus sertum pro utraquesexu subiit ? 
Ex spinis, opinor. et tribulis. The total silence of Poly- 
carp, Barnabas, Clem. Romanus, and all the other 
Christian writers whose works are now extant and who 
wrote before Tertullian, in this particular, will give 
some weight to incline one to think that this crown was 
not plaited with thorns." — Vol. 1, p. 196. Ed. 1777. 



3oo XLbc (3arfcen 






all one sort, and will not so much as admit of 
the blackthorn to be mingled with the white, be- 
cause of their unequal progress ; and, indeed, 
timber trees set in the hedge (though contem- 
poraries with it) do frequently wear it out : and 
therefore I should rather encourage such plan- 
tations to be at some yards' distance, near the 
verges, than perpendicularly in them. Lastly, 
if in planting any of the most robust forest- 
trees (especially oak, elm, chestnut) at compe- 
tent spaces, and in rows, you open a ring of 
ground at about four feet distance from the 
stem, and prick in quickset plants, you may, 
after a while, keep them clipped, at what 
height you please. They will appear ex- 
ceedingly beautiful to the eye, prove a good 
fence, and yield useful bush, bavin, and (if 
you maintain them unshorn) hips and haws 
in abundance ; this should therefore be es- 
pecially practised, where one would invite the 
birds. 

In Cornwall they secure their lands and 
woods with high mounds, and on them they 
plant acorns, whose roots bind in the looser 
mould, and so form a double and most durable 
fence, encircling the fields with a coronet of 
trees. They do likewise, and with great com- 
mendation, make hedges of our Genista spino- 
sa, prickly furze, of which they have a taller 






5obn Bvelgn 301 



sort, such as the French employ for the same 
purpose in Bretagne, where they are incom- 
parable husbands. 

FURZE. 

Furze is to be sown (which is best) or planted 
of the roots in a furrow. If sown, weed till it 
be strong, both tonsile, and to be diligently 
clipped, which will render it a very thick, 
excellent, and beautiful hedge ; otherwise per- 
mitted to grow at large, it will yield very good 
fagot ; it is likewise admirable covert for wild 
fowl, and will be made to grow even in moist as 
well as dry places. The young and tender tops 
of furze, being a little bruised, and given to a 
lean, sickly horse, will strangely recover and 
plump him. Thus, in some places, when they 
lay down their barren grounds, they sow the 
last crop with this seed, and so let them remain 
till they break them up again, and, during that 
interim, reap real advantage. Would you be- 
lieve (writes a worthy correspondent of mine) 
that in Herefordshire, famous for plenty of 
wood, their thickets of furzes, viz., the vulgar, 
should yield them more profit than a like 
quantity of the best wheat land of Bngland ? 
for such is theirs. If this be questioned, the 
scene is within a mile of Hereford, and proved 
by anniversary experience, in the lands, as I 



302 Zbe (Sarfcen 



take it, of a gentleman who is now one of the 
burgesses for that city. And in Devonshire 
(the seat of the best husbands in the world) 
they sow on their worst land, well ploughed, 
the seeds of the rankest furzes, which, in four 
or five years, becomes a rich wood ; no proven- 
der, as we say, makes horses so hardy as the 
young tops of these furzes ; no other wood so 
thick, nor more excellent fuel ; and for some 
purposes also, yielding them a kind of timber 
to their more humble buildings, and a great 
refuge for fowl and other game. I am assured 
in Bretagne it is sometimes sown no less than 
twelve yards thick, for a speedy, profitable, and 
impenetrable mound ; if we imitated this hus- 
bandry in the dry and hot barren places of 
Surrey, and other parts of this nation, we might 
exceedingly spare our woods. I have bought 
the best sort of French seed at the shops in 
London. It seems that in the more eastern 
parts of Germany, and especially in Poland, 
this vulgar trifle, and even our common broom, 
is so rare that they have desired the seeds of 
them out of England, and preserve them with 
extraordinary care in their best gardens. This 
I learn out of Johnson's "Herbal," by which 
we may consider that what is reputed a curse 
and a cumber in one place, is often esteemed an 



5obn TEvelyn 303 



ornament and a blessing in another ; but we 
shall not need go so far for this, since both beech 
and birch are almost as great strangers in many 
parts of this nation, particularly Northampton 
and Oxfordshire. Mr. Cook says much in 
praise of juniper hedges, especially for the 
more elegant enclosures. 

BROOM. 

Gems fa scoparia, — Broom. This is another 
improvement for' barren grounds, and saver 
of more substantial fuel. It may be sown 
English, or (what is more sweet and beautiful) 
Spanish, with equal success. In the western 
parts of France, and with us in Cornwall, it 
grows to an incredible height (however our 
poet gives it the epithet of humilis), and so it 
seems they had it of old, as appears by Gratius' 
genistcz altinates, with which, as he affirms, 
they used to make staves for their spears and 
hunting darts. The seeds of broom vomit and 
purge, whilst the buds and flowers, being pic- 
kled, are very grateful. 

EXD3R. 

Sambucus. — The elder. This makes a con- 
siderable fence, if set of reasonably lusty 
truncheons, much like the willow, and (as I 



3©4 Sbe (SarOen 



have seen them maintained) laid with great 
curiosity ; these far excel those extravagant 
plantations of them about London, where the 
lops are permitted to grow without due and 
skilful laying. There is a sort of elder which 
has hardly any pith ; this makes exceedingly 
stout fences, and the timber is very useful for 
cogs of mills, butchers' skewers, and such 
tough employments. Old trees do in time be- 
come firm, and close up the hollo wness to an 
almost invisible pith. But if the medicinal 
properties of the leaves, bark, berries, etc., 
were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what our 
countrymen would ail, for which he might not 
fetch a remedy from every hedge, either for 
sickness or wound. The inner bark of elder, 
applied to any burning, takes out the fire 
immediately ; that, or in season the buds, 
boiled in water-gruel for a breakfast, has 
effected wonders in a fever ; and the decoction 
is admirable to assuage inflammations and tet- 
terous humors, and especially the scorbut. But 
an extract, or theriaca (so famous in the poem 
of Nicander), may be composed of the berries, 
which is not only efficacious to eradicate this 
epidemical inconvenience, and greatly to assist 
longevity, but is a kind of catholicon against 
all infirmities whatever ; and of the same ber- 
ries is made an incomparable spirit, which, 



Jobn Evelgn 305 



drunk by itself, or mingled with wine, is not 
only an excellent drink, but admirable in the 
dropsy. In a word, the water of the leaves and 
berries is approved in the dropsy, every part of 
the tree being useful, as ma)- be seen at large in 
Blocwitzius' Anatomy thereof. The ointment 
made with the young buds and leaves in May 
with butter, is most sovereign for aches, shrunk 
sinews, haemorrhoids, etc., and the flowers 
macerated in vinegar, not only are of a grateful 
relish, but good to attenuate and cut raw and 
gross humors. Lastly, the fungus (which we 
call Jews'-ears) decocted in milk, or macerated 
in vinegar, is of known effect in the angina and 
sores of the throat. And less than this I could 
not say (with the leave of the charitable phy- 
sician) to gratify our poor woodman ; and yet 
when I have said all this, I do by no means 
commend the scent of it, which is very noxious 
to the air ; and therefore, though I do not un- 
dertake that all things which sweeten the air 
are salubrious, nor all ill savors pernicious, yet, 
as not for its beauty, so neither for its smell, 
would I plant elder near my habitation ; since 
we learn from Biesius that a certain house in 
Spain, seated among many elder trees, diseased 
and killed almost all the inhabitants, which, 
when at last they were grubbed up, became a 
very wholesome and healthy place. The elder 



3o6 XLbc (Barren 



does likewise produce a certain green fly, 
almost invisible, which is exceedingly trouble- 
some, and gathers a fiery redness where it 
attacks. 

SPINDLE-TREE. 

Evonymus. — Spindle-tree. This is a shrub 
which commonly grows in our hedges, and 
bears a very hard wood, of which they some- 
times make bows for viols, and the inlayer uses 
it for his color, and instrument-makers for 
toothing of organs, and virginal keys,* tooth- 
pickers, etc. What we else would do with it I 
know not, save that (according to its name 
abroad) they make spindles with it. I also 
learn that three or four of the berries purge 
both by vomit and siege, and the powder, made 
of the berry, being baked, kills nits, and cures 
scurfy heads. Matthiolus says the poor people 
about Trent press oil out of the berries where- 
with to feed their lamps. But why they were 
wont to scourge parricides with rods made of 
this shrub, before they put them into the sack, 
see Modestinus, L. penult. SS. ad Legem Pomp, 
de Parricid ; cited by Mr. Ray. 



* Mr. Evelyn subsequently refers to the virginals as a 
musical instrument played on by j'oung ladies in his 
time. It was made like the harpsichord, and was played 
upon by the fingers. 



5obn iSvelun 307 

DOGWOOD. 

Here might come in, or be named, at least, 
wild cornel, or dogwood, good to make mill- 
cogs, pestles, bobbins for bone-lace, spokes for 
wheels, etc.; also the best skewers for butchers, 
because it does not taint the flesh, and is of so 
very hard a substance as to make wedges to 
cleave and rive other wood instead of iron. 

VIBURNUM. 

The viburnum, or wayfaring tree, growing 
plentifully in every corner, makes pins for the 
yokes of oxen ; and superstitious people think 
that it protects their cattle from being be- 
witched, and place the shrub about their stalls ; 
it certainly makes the most pliant and best 
bands to fagot with. The leaves and berries are 
astringent, and make an excellent gargle for 
loose teeth, sore-throat, and stop fluxes. The 
leaves decocted to a lye not only color the hair 
black, but fasten the roots ; and the bark of the 
root, macerated under ground, well beaten, and 
often boiled, serves for bird-lime. 

YUCCA. 

The American yucca is a hardier plant than 
we take it to be, for it will suffer our sharpest 



3o8 XLbc (Barren 



winter, as I have seen by experience, without 
that trouble and care of setting it in cases in our 
conservatories of hiemation. Such as have be- 
held it in flower (which is not indeed till it be 
of some age) must needs admire the beauty of it ; 
and it being easily multiplied, why should it not 
make one of the best and most ornamental 
fences in the world for our gardens, with its 
natural palisadoes, as well as the more tender 
and impatient of moisture, the aloe, does for 
their vineyards in Iyanguedoc ? But we believe 
nothing improvable, save what our grand- 
fathers taught us. Finally, let trial likewise be 
made of that thorn mentioned by Captain Lig- 
gon in his " History of Barbadoes," whether it 
would not be made to grow amongst us, and 
prove as convenient for fences as there, the 
seeds or sets being transported to us with due 
care. Having thus accomplished what, by your 
commands, I had to offer concerning the propa- 
gation of the more solid material and useful 
trees, as well the dry as the aquatical, and, to the 
best of my talent, fenced our plantation in, I 
should here conclude, and set a bound likewise 
to my discourse, by making an apology for the 
many errors and impertinencies of it, did not 
the zeal and ambition of this illustrious society 
to promote and improve all attempts which 
may concern public utility or ornament, per- 



Jobn iSvelyn 309 

suade me, that what I am adding for the further 
encouragement to the planting of some other 
useful (though less vulgar) trees will at least 
obtain your pardon, if it miss of your approba- 
tion. 

B (SUiincunj. 

FROM THE "GARDENS OF CYRUS." 



C> A P A. P 




P. A A 



/vv\/\ 
A 





A A 



XXa/\ 




/VW\ 

<&uft> quincunce specfosus 
<&ui, in quicunque 
Spectavens, rectus est ? 

quhstctilian. 



Iknickerbocker IRuggeta, 



Nugget — " A diminutive mass of precious metal." 



u Little gems of bookmaking." — Commercial Gazette^ Cin- 
cinnati. 

u For many a long day nothing has been thought out or 
worked out so sure to prove entirely pleasing to cultured 
book-lovers." — The Bookmaker. 

I — Gesta Romanorum. Tales of the old 
monks. Edited by C. Swan . . . $i oo 

" This little gem is a collection of stories composed by the 
monks of old, who were in the custom of relating them to 
each other after meals for their mutual amusement and infor- 
mation." — Williams' Literary Monthly. 

" Nuggets indeed, and charming ones, are these rescued 
from the mine of old Latin, which would certainly have been 
lost to many busy readers who can only take what comes to 
them without delving for hidden treasures." 

II — Headlong Hall and Nightmare Abbey. 
By Thomas Love Peacock . . . $i oo 

" It must have been the court librarian of King Oberon 
who originally ordered the series of quaintly artistic little 
volumes that Messrs. Putnam are publishing under the name 
of Knickerbocker Nuggets. There is an elfin dignity in the 
aspect of these books in their bindings of dark and light blue 
with golden arabesques." — Portland Press. 

Ill— Gulliver's Travels. By Jonathan Swift. 
A reprint of the early complete edition. Very fully 
illustrated. Two vols %i 50 

" Messrs. Putnam have done a substantial service to all 
readers of English classics by reprinting in two dainty and 
artistically bound volumes those biting satires of Jonathan 
Swift, ' Gulliver's Travels.' " 



Umfcfeerbocfcer Budgets 



IV — Tales from Irving. With illustrations. 
Two vols. Selected from "The Sketch Book," 
"Traveller," " Wolfert's Roost," " Bracebridge 
Hall." $2 oo 

;c The tales, pathetic and thrilling as they are in themselves, 
are rendered winsome and realistic by the lifelike portraitures 
which profusely illustrate the volumes. . . . We confess our 
high appreciation of the superb manner in which the pub- 
lishers have got up and sent forth the present volumes — which 
are real treasures, to be prized for their unique character." — 
Christian Union. 

° Such books as these will find their popularity confined to 
no one country, but they must be received with enthusiasm 
wherever art and literature are recognized." — Albany Argus. 

V— Book of British Ballads. Edited by S. 
C. Hall. A fac-simile of the original edition. 
With illustrations by Creswick, Gilbert, and 
others $i 5° 

" This is a diminutive fac-simile of the original very valu- 
able edition. . . . The collection is not only the most com- 
plete and reliable that has been published, but the volume is 
beautifully illustrated by skilful artists." — Pittsburg Chron- 
icle. 

" Probably the best general collection of our ballad litera- 
ture, in moderate compass, that has yet been made." — Chi- 
cago Dial. 

VI — The Travels of Baron Munchausen. 

Reprinted from the early, complete edition. Very 
fully illustrated $r 25 

11 The venerable Baron Munchausen in his long life has 
never appeared as well-dressed, so far as we know, as now in 
this goodly company." 

" The Baron's stories are as fascinating as the Arabian 
Nights." — Church Union. 



•Knickerbocker IRuggete Hi 

VII — Letters, Sentences, and Maxims. By 

Lord Chesterfield. With a critical essay by C. 
A. Sainte-Beuve $i oo 

,f Full of wise things, quaint things, witty and shrewd 
things, and the maker of this book has put the pick of them 
all together." — London World. 

" Each of the little volumes in this series is a literary gem." 
— Christian at Work. 

VIII— The Vicar of Wakefield. By Gold- 
smith. With 32 illustrations by William Mul- 

READY $1 OO 

" Goldsmith's charming tale seems more charming than 
ever in the dainty dress of the 'Knickerbocker Nuggets' 
series. These little books are a delight to the eye, and their 
convenient form and size make them most attractive to all 
book-lovers." — The Writer, Boston. 

" A gem of an edition, well made, printed in clear, read~ 
able type, illustrated with spirit, and just such a booklet as, 
when one has it in his pocket, makes all the difference be- 
tween solitude and loneliness." — Independent. 

IX — Lays of Ancient Rome. By Thomas 
Babington Macaulay. Illustrated by George 
Scharf $1 00 

11 The poems included in this collection are too well known 
to require that attention should be drawn to them, but the 
beautiful setting which they receive in the dainty cover and 
fine workmanship of this series makes it a pleasure even to 
handle the volume." — Yale Literary Magazine. 

X — The Rose and the Ring. By William M. 
Thackeray. With the author's illustrations. $1 25 

" ' The Rose and the Ring,' by Thackeray, is reproduced 
with quaint illustrations, evidently taken from the author's 
own handiwork." — Rochester P»st-ExJ>ress. 



iv fmfckerbocfcer Burets 

XI — Irish Melodies and Songs. By Thomas 
Moore. Illustrated by Maclise . . $i 50 

" The latest issue is a collection of Thomas Moore's ' Irish 
Melodies and Songs,' fully and excellently illustrated, with 
each page of the text printed within an outline border of 
appropriate green tint, embellished with emblems and figures 
fitting the text." — Boston Times. 

XII — Undine and Sintram. By De La Motte 
Fouque. Illustrated . . . . $1 00 

11 ' Undine and Sintram ' are the latest issue, bound in one 
volume. They are of the size classics should be — pocket 
volumes, — and nothing more desirable is to be found among 
the new editions of old treasures." — San Jose Mercury. 

XIII — The Essays of Elia. By Charles 
Lamb. Two vols. . . . . $2 00 

" The genial essayist himself could have dreamed of no 
more beautiful setting than the Putnams have given the Es- 
says of Elia by printing them among their Knickerbocker 
Nuggets." — Chicago Advance. 

XIV — Tales from the Italian Poets. By 

Leigh Hunt. Two vols. . . . $2 00 

4i The perfection of artistic bookmaking." — San Francisco 

Chronicle. 

" This work is most delightful literature, which finds a fit- 
ting place in this collection, bound in volumes of striking 
beauty."— Troy Titties. 

11 Hunt had just that delightful knowledge of the Italian 
poets that one would most desire for oneself, together with 
an exquisite style of his own wherein to make his presentation 
of them to English readers perfect." — New York Critic. 

The first series, comprising the foregoing 
eighteen volurries> in handsome casei $19.00 



Ikntcfcerbocker IRuggete 



XV. — Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus 
Aurelius Antoninus. Translated by George 
Long ........ $i oo 

11 The thoughts of the famous Roman are worthy of a new 
introduction to the army of readers through a volume so 
dainty and pleasing." — Intelligencer. 

" As a boolt for hard study, as a book to inspire reverie, as 
a book for five minutes or an hour, it is both delightful and 
profitable." — Jotirnal of Education. 

" It is an interesting little book, and we feel indebted to the 
translator for this presentation of his work." — Presbyterian. 

XVI. — ^Esop's Fables. Rendered chiefly from 
original sources. By Rev. Thomas James, M.A. 
With 100 illustrations of John Tenniell . $i 25 

11 It is wonderful the hold these parables have had upon 
the human attention ; told to children, and yet of no less 
interest to men and women." — Chautauqua Herald. 

" For many a long day nothing has been thought out or 
worked out so sure to prove entirely pleasing to cultured 
book-lovers." — The Bookmaker. 

" These classic studies adorned with morals were never 
more neatly prepared for the public eye." — The Milwaukee 
Wisconsin. 

XVII. — Ancient Spanish Ballads. Historic 
and Romantic. Translated, with notes, by J. G. 
Lockhart. Reprinted from the revised edition 
of 1 841, with 60 illustrations by Allan, Roberts, 
Simson, Warren, Aubrey, and Harvey . $1 50 

" A mass of popular poetry which has never yet received 
the attention to which it is entitled." — Boston Journal of 
Education. 

" The historical and artistic settings of these mediaeval 
poetic gems enhance the value and attractiveness of the 
book." — Buffalo Chronicle Advocate. 



•Knickerbocker IRuggets 



XVIII.— The Wit and Wisdom of Sydney 
Smith. A selection of the most memorable pas- 
sages in his Writings and Conversations . $i oo 

" It is certainly a precious nugget that is presented in this 
issue, and the busy man of the world and the delving student 
will alike find occasion for blessing the compiler." — Utica 
Herald. 

XIX. — The Ideals of the Republic; or, 
Great Words from Great Americans. Com- 
prising : — "The Declaration of Independence, 
1776." "The Constitution of the United States, 
1779." "Washington's Circular Letter, 1783." 
"Washington's First Inaugural, 1789." "Wash- 
ington's Second Inaugural, 1793." " Washington's 
Farewell Address." "Lincoln's First Inaugural, 
1861." " Lincoln's Second Inaugural, 1865." "Lin- 
coln's Gettysburg Address, 1863." . . $1 00 

41 Such a book ought to be in every American home. It 
ought to meet every immigrant to these shores. 
They have never before been published in a form as conven- 
ient and elegant as that of this volume." — Christian Intelli- 
gencer. 

XX. — Selections from Thomas De Quincey. 

Comprising: — "On Murder Considered as One of 
the Fine Arts." " Three Memorable Murders." 
" The Spanish Nun " . . . . $100 

11 Strangers to his works will find in this compilation a 
captivating introduction to them." — Providence Journal. 

" All the delicacy of expression and felicity of arrangement 
familiar to the reader of De Quincey, appear here." — Water- 
town Herald. 



•ftntcfcerbocfcer muagets vii 



XXI. — Tales by Heinrich Zschokke. Com- 
prising : — "A New Year's Eve." "The Broken 
Pitcher." "Jonathan Frock." "A Walpurgis Night." 
Translated by Parke Godwin and William P. 
Prentice. . . . . $i co 

14 They are marked by an easy grace of manner, purity of 
language, and originality of conception, and have a most 
hearty and wholesome flavor." — Public Opinion. 

XXII. — American War Ballads. A selection 
of the more noteworthy of the Ballads and Lyrics 
which were produced during the Revolution, the 
War of 1 8 12, the Mexican War, and the Civil War. 
Edited, with notes, by Geo. Cary Eggleston. 
With original illustrations. 2 vols. . $2 50 

XXIII. — Songs of Fairy Land. Compiled by 
Edward T. Mason, with illustrations from designs 
by Maud Humphrey $1 25 

XXIV.— The Boyhood and Youth of Goethe. 
Comprising the first thirteen books of his Autobiog- 
raphy (Truth and Poetry from my own Life). 2 
vols $2 00 

XXV. — The Autobiography of Benjamin 
Franklin. Edited, with notes, by John Bigelow. 

XXVI. — The Garden, as considered in literature 
by certain polite writers. Edited by Walter Howe, 
with portrait of William Kent . . $1 00 

XXVII. — Sesame and Lilies. By John Rus- 

KIN . $IOO 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers 
New York and London 







= 1fej 



